Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur was able to take away one positive from the team’s disastrous weekend at the Formula 1 Sao Paulo Grand Prix.
The Scuderia endured a miserable afternoon at Interlagos, beginning with Lewis Hamilton’s race being compromised almost immediately after contact with Carlos Sainz.
Damage sustained in the tag with the Williams caused a loss in downforce, with the Brit, who missed out on Q3, eventually retiring the car on Lap 37.
Charles Leclerc was also taken out of contention at Turn 1, like Hamilton. But he was an innocent victim in the contact between Oscar Piastri and Andrea Kimi Antonelli.
After a VSC restart, the McLaren got alongside Antonelli at the Senna S, but the pair touched, which sent the Italian rookie’s off-course Mercedes into the path of the Ferrari.
Leclerc suffered front-left suspension damage and retired there and then, a huge disappointment with the Monegasque having qualified a brilliant third ahead of Piastri.
It typified the Scuderia’s season, which now has just three races to take a Grand Prix win, having so far failed to do so during the campaign.
But after the race, Vasseur believed Leclerc’s qualifying pace and the apparent ability to contend at the front were enough to make his glass half full rather than half empty.
“A positive when you are at the end of the championship is difficult to take positives when you have [a] double-DNF,” he admitted to media including Motorsport Week.
“But I would say that if I have to take a positive part of the weekend is the pace in quali, the recovery, that even the start, the restart, we are fighting, looking at the front, not looking at the guy who is behind us, trying to attack and with a positive attitude.
“And this is for sure good. But when you are at this point of the championship, you are more focused on points than on potential.”
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