Ferrari team boss Frédéric Vasseur reflects on a tough weekend for the Italian team. During the São Paulo Grand Prix, neither Charles Leclerc nor Lewis Hamilton managed to finish the race. As a result, Ferrari has dropped from second to fourth place in the constructors’ championship.
During the São Paulo Grand Prix, Hamilton’s race was essentially over in the first lap. The Brit was closely following Franco Colapinto, but moved out of the Alpine’s slipstream too late, causing his front wing to get damaged and end up under his car. The seven-time world champion continued to race with the damage for a while, but the team decided to pull him out of the race in lap 39. Charles Leclerc’s race ended shortly after the restart, when Andrea Kimi Antonelli was hit by Oscar Piastri and spun out in the first corner. The spinning Mercedes hit the left front wheel of the Ferrari, completely destroying it.
Vasseur acknowledges that the double retirement of his drivers felt heavy: “It was a tough weekend. I felt we were in a good place with Charles, that he had a strong start and restart, and now we’re paying the full price for the crash between Antonelli and Max Verstappen.” On the question of blame, he said: “I don’t care who is responsible between Verstappen and Antonelli, but it’s clear it wasn’t Charles.” Vasseur emphasized that Leclerc was in a position to fight for the win or at least the podium: “He could have fought for first place, or at least for the podium.”
Dual Penalty
“If I have to name a positive side of the weekend, it’s the strong pace in qualifying and the recovery during the race. Even at the start and the restart, the team kept fighting, we looked forward instead of backward. We tried to attack and maintained a positive attitude. That’s definitely a plus, but at this point in the championship, the focus is more on scoring points than on exploiting potential.” According to Vasseur, the loss of points hurts extra in the battle for second place in the constructors’ championship: “It’s tough, because in this fight you can’t give away points. When you lose points, you also give points to the competition. It’s a double penalty, and for us, that’s very heavy.”
With the current standings, Mercedes is the leader in the fight for second place in the constructors’ championship with 398 points, followed by Red Bull with 366 points and Ferrari with 362 points. It promises to be an exciting final phase of the season, where every race will be crucial in the fight for second place. Learn more about the constructors’ championship.
