After a challenging Friday, Ferrari showed signs of improvement in qualifying, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton securing second and third on the grid. However, race day proved far more difficult, with both drivers struggling in hot conditions and adopting a three-stop strategy due to tyre degradation. Hamilton finished fifth, while Leclerc crossed the line in eighth.

Vasseur said the team’s performance deficit compared to Mercedes and Max Verstappen was the decisive factor. “The strategy is not the issue. We didn’t have the pace of Mercedes and Verstappen,” he said.

He explained that Ferrari took strategic risks in an attempt to compensate, but these did not yield the desired outcome. “We tried to compensate for taking risks on the strategy, but it was not a good fit,” Vasseur added.

The team principal acknowledged that Ferrari could stay competitive with McLaren but found it significantly harder to match the leading pace of Mercedes. “We overpushed probably the first couple of laps to stay with them, and we destroyed a bit of everything,” he said, referring to the impact on tyre performance.

Leclerc’s race added to a recent run of difficult results, though Vasseur stressed that the driver’s confidence and pace were not in doubt. He pointed out that Leclerc’s front-row qualifying position demonstrated strong performance. “It’s more a matter of overheating and destroying everything; it’s nothing to do with pace,” Vasseur said.

Reflecting further, Vasseur suggested that Ferrari may have focused too heavily on competing directly with Mercedes, which influenced both race execution and strategy decisions. “We were probably too focused on Mercedes and then perhaps reacted too aggressively with the strategy,” he said.

He indicated that Ferrari would take lessons from Austria into the next race, emphasising the need to refocus on the team’s own performance rather than direct comparisons with rivals.

–F1/ChannelAfrica–