Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur has admitted the team didn’t give much thought to making a late second pit stop with Carlos Sainz in Formula 1‘s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The Italian marque missed out on the Constructors’ Championship to McLaren in the last round, despite Sainz and team-mate Charles Leclerc both claiming podiums.
Sainz, who lined up third behind the McLaren duo, was unable to maintain pace with eventual race victor Lando Norris, who crossed the line with five seconds in hand.
The Spaniard’s gap to Norris extending with each passing lap in the second stint on the Hard compound created the situation where Ferrari might have rolled the dice.
But while Sainz had the margin to Leclerc behind to pit again without losing a position, Ferrari decided to not grant him the chance to chase Norris down on new tyres.
Vasseur has divulged how Ferrari’s wish to remain close enough to Norris to capitalise had misfortune struck McLaren led to its choice to not consider a second stop.
“Honestly not, because I think the most important is to be focused on yourself and to do the best that we can do,” he explained to media including Motorsport Week.
“Then, if you stay close, you don’t know what could happen, so that he could have an issue, a puncture, and so that we are just focused on ourselves and to try to do the best.
“The best was the strategy that we did, but now it was exactly what we didn’t want to do, to change the strategy or to change the attitude, just because we are fighting with McLaren.
“We are just focused on ourselves from Friday, and I think overall, considering the penalty, the track limit [violation in Q2 with Leclerc], we did a good job.
“But it was the most important just to be focused on ourselves,” he reiterated.
Ferrari’s forlorn McLaren chase
Ferrari had triggered an undercut on McLaren earlier in the race which had placed Sainz under two seconds behind Norris once the Briton exited the pitlane on Lap 28.
But even with the gap having been slashed, Vasseur has conceded that he was more hopeful that Ferrari would have the pace at the end to mount an attack on Norris.
“We were more expecting to push Norris at the end of the race and on the degradation, but it didn’t happen,” he explained.
“But we knew also that overall the delta pace from one stint to the other one between McLaren and us is plus or minus one-tenth, this is not enough to overtake.
“It’s much more on the degradation at the end of the stint than something else.”
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