Ferrari’s Belgian Grand Prix was a mixed bag for team boss Fred Vasseur who was pleased with the Italian outfit’s performance at Spa-Francorchamps yet disappointed with the result.
Charles Leclerc’s efforts in qualifying yielded the second fastest time in Q3, which equated to pole position following Max Verstappen 10-place grid penalty.
Leclerc then finished fourth on race day, after a challenging afternoon, when the Scuderia charger benefitted again from a rival’s misfortune, with George Russell’s disqualification handing the final step on the podium to the Monegasque.
On the other side of the Ferrari garage, Carlos Sainz led the race during his prolonged opening stint on the hard tyre but ultimately finished seventh on the road, and sixth in the final classification.
Vasseur praised Ferrari's pace over the weekend, though he felt the team's positions could have been better.
“The performance of the car, if you finish less than 10 seconds behind the winner at Spa, you can imagine it means the pace is decent,” commented the Frenchman.
“I am quite pleased with the overall performance but a bit disappointed with the position. The target was not to finish P4 and P7 [P3 and P6 after Russell's penalty], but overall the pace was OK.”
Lewis Hamilton ended up the surprise winner at Spa, a result that highlighted once again the unpredictable and fierce nature of this year’s competition, with multiple teams, including Red Bull, Ferrari, McLaren, and Mercedes, each securing race wins.
The closeness of the field means that any mistake can be costly, and every point is crucial as Vasseur underscored.
“If you look at the picture from Friday morning, everybody was thinking that Max will fly and win the race even with the penalty and Mercedes was struggling like hell,” he said.
“They are back. At the end of the day, it’s so tight because we are talking about one or two-tenths per lap. It means if you
“If you are able to fix a small problem or make small steps forward with the setup, it makes a huge difference.
“It is probably a good side of the championship today, you have four teams in the race, six drivers within 10 seconds at the end. This is mega at Spa.”
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