Ferrari boss Fred Vassuer has explained the decision to issue team orders to Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc in Baku, with the Monegasque asked to make way for his team mate during Sunday’s race.
In the end, Hamilton came home eighth just ahead of his team mate – who was running in front after the two had stopped for their one and only change of tyres. But Leclerc had started on the mediums, Hamilton the hards, with the latter strategy proving slightly better in Baku.
As such, Ferrari asked Leclerc to let his team mate through so that Hamilton could try and overtake Lando Norris ahead – despite Leclerc being close to the back of the McLaren man. He did so, but Hamilton ultimately could not find a way past his fellow countryman.
“I think the situation was clear for us, that Lewis had a tyre advantage, and we asked Charles to let him go to try to overtake… Norris,” Vasseur explained.
“On top of that, Charles had the issue with the recovery, and we are not at the top [use] on the engine. I think that it was the best option for us to do this move.”
With Hamilton making no headway, a second call came to reverse the positions on the final lap. Hamilton dropped two seconds back to comply but crossed the finish line just 0.4s ahead of his team mate.
“We asked to swap back, and it looks like Lewis had a misjudgement on the position of the start and finish line,” Vasseur added – with no hint that Leclerc took anything amiss in finishing ninth rather than eighth.
The result did drop Ferrari behind Mercedes in the Teams’ Championship, with the Silver Arrows now four points ahead in the fight for second. But Vasseur was keen to stress that the weekend got away from the Scuderia during Qualifying, rather than in the race.
“If we lost something, it was yesterday, not today,” he said, referring to Saturday’s dramatic session that saw Hamilton exit in Q2 and Leclerc crash in Q3. “Today, we started behind Norris, we finished behind Norris. It is like it is. It’s more yesterday, I think, that we had the car. The driver was able to fight for P1, all the free practise, and we finished P10 and P12.
“Lewis – FP1, FP2, FP3 went well. There was a good pace over the weekend. The first set in Q1 went well also.
“And in Q2 he did two laps, but out of the pace. This is the main issue of the weekend, these two laps. Because, honestly, if you put him on the first four, I think he finishes on the podium.”
But while Ferrari undeniably had a challenging weekend in Baku, Vasseur believes there is still cause for optimism.
“We need to do a better job collectively, because to be P12 is not the result that we are expecting. But it’s true that the last couple of weekends, if you consider this one, Monza, even Zandvoort, the pace was good. We are getting there now.
“One thing is to have the potential, the other one is to deliver. We need [to complete the] execution to do our job.”
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