Vasseur reveals what Ferrari aksed for from Leclerc and Sainz in Qatar

On the back of a successful race weekend in Qatar for the Scuderia, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur has revealed that the engineers had asked Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz not to overstress the tyres in the opening stages of the race to extend the first stint.

Ferrari had been expected to struggle for pace at the Qatar Grand Prix because of the track characteristics of the Lusail International Circuit. Although the team lost valuable points in the 19-lap sprint race, Charles Leclerc picked up the pieces when Lando Norris was hit with a ten-second stop-and-go penalty in the closing stages of the race to finish the race in a brilliant second spot.

His team-mate initially kept up with Leclerc, but as soon as the Monégasque raised his pace, the Spaniard slowly lost connection to his team-mate. Sainz then endured a puncture after Valtteri Bottas ran over the rear-view mirror that laid on the main straight. As a result of the incident, the four-time F1 race winner lost valuable time as he crawled back into the pits.

Although the second safety car intervention helped Sainz reduce his gap to the front after his puncture, he finished down in P6 behind the Alpine of Pierre Gasly.

Reflecting on the weekend, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur was delighted with the overall result, but he rued the puncture for Carlos Sainz which prevented the Scuderia from achieving an even better result in Qatar.

“The race today was a bit chaotic, but overall, it was a good one for us: we executed it well, the pace was there and I’m very pleased with the job we did today. It was in our plan that the drivers would not push too hard for the first laps in order to push more later on and we were confident we had the pace on the Hard to push until the end.

“We have some regrets, such as Carlos’ puncture which came at the very worst place, as he had to drive a full lap before pitting and it cost us one or two positions.

Although McLaren displayed a stronger performance than Ferrari in Qatar, the Scuderia managed to reduce the gap to 21 points in the Constructors’ Championship.

Vasseur continued: “The most important thing today is that we scored more points than McLaren. We are now 21 points behind, with one race to go which means everything is possible. We have also increased our lead over Red Bull, which means in Abu Dhabi we can focus more on the team in front of us.

“Now we go to Abu Dhabi, which on paper, should be a better circuit for us and with Max and Mercedes on the pace, you never know what could happen in the championship battle. We will push flat out to the final chequered flag.”