The United States Grand Prix weekend was something of a mixed one for Ferrari, and in the end a solid second place was not quite enough for Charles Leclerc, who made it clear that he wanted more.
Not for the first time this year, the team looked good in practice, with Leclerc fastest on Friday, and Lewis Hamilton topping the times in FP3.
However things went awry when it mattered in Qualifying, with Leclerc having to settle for P4, and Hamilton for P5, albeit in a very tightly packed grid.
On race day the team went for soft tyres, and both men made progress at the start. As their chosen two-stop strategy unfolded Leclerc was able to charge up to runner-up spot behind Kimi Antonelli, passing Max Verstappen along the way, while Hamilton followed the Red Bull driver home in P4.
On the face of it, second was a decent result for Leclerc but after the flag he expressed some frustration, perhaps wondering what might have been had he started from higher than fourth – and potentially found a way to beat Antonelli.
“I don’t know if you had all the radio, but very early in the race, Charles was targeting P1,” said Team Principal Fred Vasseur. “And when you do P2 and you target P1, you are not happy. But this I like as a feeling.
“Honestly, at the end of the weekend, I think it’s a good week, a good result for us for the third or fourth race in a row, we are the team scoring the biggest amount of points.
“I think we are on the right way, but for sure, when you have this feeling that you are in a good shape on the weekend and you do P2, you can have also a bit of frustration. But the frustration sometimes is good.”
Vasseur was confident that the team had opted for the best strategy.
“Today I think that it was between one and two stops,” he said. “We had to be aggressive starting from P4, P5. It was a good call from us.
“Now when you start a bit behind, you start to have the dirty air, and you have to be a bit more aggressive. And without perhaps the Virtual Safety Car at the end, Lewis was perhaps able to come back on Max, I don’t know. Probably yes.
“But overall, I think it’s a good weekend in terms of pace, execution. Everything went well – except the last lap in Q3. It’s true for us, but if you have a look on [Saturday], I think it was quite particular, that the two McLarens didn’t improve, Russell didn’t improve, the two Red Bulls didn’t improve.
“I think what is true is that with the cars or the tyres, the window is very narrow, and as soon as you are a bit out, quickly you lose two or three tenths. And today in F1 [in] the top eight, two or three tenths can be a sixth position.
“It means that you can move from the super result to nowhere for gust of wind, or you slide a little bit too much in the out lap, or you have to slow down, as we had the case in Madrid, you have to slow down a little bit, don’t stick to your pace in the out lap, or whatever, the impact is huge.”
Vasseur insisted that the basic SF-26 package is a strong one, and the challenge is to optimise everything on a given weekend.
“Pace was good,” he said. “For sure the pace from the beginning when we put the car on track on Friday morning, to the last lap of the race, the pace was there.
“What we have to pay attention is that competitiveness is not just about the package; it’s also the fact that sometimes set-up, tyre management, you are in the right spot, and you are doing a good weekend. And sometimes not.
“And if you have the package when you are not in the right spot, you can also have the feeling that it’s not working.”
Finding that window, especially when it really matters in Q3, remains the big challenge.
“I think at least on this weekend, it was true for everybody,” said Vasseur. “Probably Kimi did a step also, because you can also imagine that he was not on the right spot before, and he put everything together for Q3.
“But I think the other seven cars, except Hadjar, probably the other six cars took a step back. The fastest lap of Charles was in Q2. For sure we didn’t do the perfect job in Q3.
“That this is true for us, for everybody. But we have to put together all the parameters to try to have a better understanding of the situation. And I think all the teams we are improving step-by-step on this.
“But it’s so marginal that sometimes a gust of wind, you are sliding a little bit, you overheat the tyres for details, sometimes you can be out of the spot. If you don’t put everything together, you can move from P2 to P6.”
