According to former Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg, Ferrari`s lackluster performance at the Canadian Grand Prix encapsulates their challenging season thus far.
In Montreal, Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished fifth and sixth respectively. This result saw the Scuderia drop to third place in the Constructors` Championship, overtaken by Mercedes, who achieved a strong one-three finish.
While Ferrari`s SF-25 car showed intermittent bursts of speed, particularly with Leclerc, the weekend was plagued by issues. Leclerc missed a significant portion of Friday practice after crashing in the initial session. He also made a critical error on his final qualifying lap, moments after setting the fastest first sector time.
Lewis Hamilton`s race on Sunday was also hampered when his car sustained damage after hitting a groundhog on lap 13.
Reflecting on Ferrari`s difficulties on The F1 Show, Rosberg commented, “We`ve got to remember that Charles Leclerc was quick at times in the race… He was quick in qualifying. Some say he could have been top three in qualifying, right up there with the others.”
Rosberg criticized strategic decisions, stating, “I think they also did a wrong tyre choice in qualifying… So a lot of strategy mistakes there because then also in the race they stopped Lewis into a bunch of traffic which lost him loads of race time.”
He also questioned the team`s approach with Leclerc: “They also had a free opportunity to try and a one-stop with Charles. It was a free opportunity but they didn`t try to do it… they could have taken a shot at it and left him out on that first stint in the first place because he was going strong and they just pulled him in early. He was also a bit annoyed about it because he wanted to stay out longer.”
“So it was a bit of a clumsy weekend from Ferrari,” Rosberg concluded. “Then also bad luck with the groundhog. So it all came together, which is not good. It`s like the story of their year so far, isn`t it? It just keeps on going like that, it`s a tough one for them.”
Team Principal Vasseur Addresses Mistakes and Mercedes` Performance
With Mercedes securing a victory, Ferrari remains the only one of F1`s top four teams yet to win a Grand Prix this season. Their best results have been three podium finishes for Leclerc.
Team boss Frederic Vasseur acknowledged the team simply “made too many mistakes” preventing a better outcome. He noted, however, that Mercedes` sudden return to form served as a valuable lesson.
“We showed moments where we were on the pace,” Vasseur said. “I think we made too many mistakes collectively from the beginning, with the crash in FP1, the mistake in qualy, with the marmot in the race. In the end, the fight is so tight, that you can change the position for almost nothing from one weekend to another one.”
“It`s a good lesson from Mercedes. They were nowhere the last three weekends and they were able to have two cars on the podium this weekend,” he continued. “I`m not sure that they completely changed the car, it`s more that from the beginning of the weekend, from lap one on Friday morning they were there. They did a good job with the preparation. This weekend, for different reasons, the focus was not always there.”
Vasseur emphasized the importance of tyre management for strong results. “If we want to achieve, if we want to start from the first rows and to have a clean weekend, as [in] Monaco, we need to do a very smooth weekend in terms of execution and it`s where we failed massively in Canada,” he stated.
Regarding the decision not to attempt a one-stop strategy with Leclerc, Vasseur explained, “I discussed with Charles after the race. Where he is right is that we had not that much to lose when you are behind the pack and we can take some risk, but it was, for us, a bit too optimistic to do one stint of 50 laps with the hard [tyre] in terms of life first before performance.” He added that a lack of laps earlier in the weekend might have hindered their ability to accurately assess this possibility.
