Negative balance at Ferrari after qualifying in Montmelò valid for the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix, tenth round of the Formula One World Championship. In fact, the Scuderia di Maranello had to settle for a disappointing result third row on the grid with Charles Leclerc 5th and Carlos Sainz 6thfinishing behind the Mercedes by a few hundredths but with a gap of three tenths from Lando Norris’s pole position with McLaren (and from Max Verstappen’s 2nd place with Red Bull).
“We decided to save a set of soft tires for tomorrow and Mercedes didn’t, so I think it’s an advantage for the first part of the race. We are a bit disappointed because Charles made a mistake in turn 5 and therefore we lost an easy final third position, but it’s part of the game. We are all so close, so you have to push and mistakes happen“, the comment of Frederic Vasseur to the microphones of Sky Sport.
“I’m not a big fan of this type of track with long corners, we need to put everything together for tomorrow, we’re expecting colder weather and hopefully that will help us. I didn’t expect to be closer with the developments, because the others also work and don’t sleep, also because on these tracks the impact of tire management is much greater than the weight of the updates“, explains the Ferrari team principal.
“In the end we have to have a good race tomorrow and bring home important points: it will be like this until the end of the season, with ups and downs, in some weekends we will be in front, in others more in difficulty, and when we are on the third row the objective is to do as many points as possible. When we talk about scoring points it always means improving the starting position and recovering, but I mean that there are still 15 races to go and it is important to place in every weekend. We can recover and pass the two Mercedes for the podium. Then, if you are third or fourth you score more points than first and tenth place. The colder track could help us, we saw it in Q1, and in the race the direction will be that.” adds the French manager in view of the Iberian GP.
