Charles Leclerc urges Ferrari introspection into wet weather strategies as Red Bull singled out as the benchmark
Charles Leclerc has urged Ferrari to look into why the team continues to mess up whenever it comes to strategies in wet weather conditions. The Bahrain GP in Malaysia provided another example of the Italian team finding itself on the wrong tire and then ending up in a compromised position.
Ahead of the start of the race, there was a choice to be made by all teams when it came to the tires they would start the race on. Polesitter Max Verstappen and his teammate Isack Hadjar started the race on intermediates, with the Mercedes pair doing the same.
Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton did the opposite as they started the race on slicks. As soon as the race began, it became clear that the intermediates were the tires to be on, and both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were massively compromised.
Aided by a couple of safety car stoppages and the pace of the car, the duo eventually finished the race in P3 and P4. However, the result could have been much worse had both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc not been lucky with the safety car timing.
Talking to the media, including Vision F1, Charles Leclerc admitted that even though the call was always going to be touch and go on either side, Red Bull has had a knack of almost always nailing it when it comes to these situations, and Ferrari needs to learn what changes it could make to emulate what the Austrian unit is doing. He said,
“I was aligned with the team. It was a close call as it is always in these conditions and we’ll speak whether to split the cars in those conditions is the best possible way. But it’s also true that when you split the cars, by definition there’s one very wrong choice and one very good choice and it’s very difficult to have an in-between scenario where both scenarios kind of pans out the same.”
He added,
“So we thought we were doing the right thing obviously, but clearly there’s one team in particular – and that is Red Bull – that gets it right most of the time with both cars. For that we need to understand what they are doing better than we do.”
Charles Leclerc explains why the slick tires were the wrong call
Ahead of the restart, since the rain had stopped, there was a question mark over what tire each car would have. Explaining the premise behind putting the soft tire on the car, Charles Leclerc revealed that, according to Ferrari, it felt that the track had reached a point where it was dry enough. He said,
“It’s very difficult, it was the same for everybody. I think even though we had a bit of data on our side, it’s in conditions that have nothing to do with the conditions we had today. So yeah, it was based on intuition, on looking at the ground, and the surface looked pretty dry.”
He added,
“The thing is that the biggest question mark we’ve had is how much water there is in the holes of the tarmac, and there was a lot more water than I think the majority thought there was, and that’s why the slick ended up being the wrong decision.”
The Ferrari duo would eventually make their way through the field to finish P3 and P4 for the race, even though Lewis Hamilton did feel that maybe a better result was potentially on the table with the right call at the start.
