Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur owned up to his team’s miscue in qualifying in Monaco that cost Charles Leclerc a three-place grid drop for Sunday’s race.
In Saturday’s qualifying shootout, Leclerc had just finished his final Q3 lap and was going through Monaco’s tunnel when McLaren’s Lando Norris stumbled upon the slow-moving Ferrari.
The stewards sanctioned Leclerc for impeding the Briton, but it later transpired that the Monegasque had not been informed by the Ferrari pitwall of Norris’ impeding arrival.
©Ferrari
“Yesterday I got the information too late and that of course put us a little bit on the back foot for today,” Leclerc commented, referring to his grid drop that only made life more difficult for the Scuderia charger.
“Of course, it’s frustrating. Any weekend like this one anywhere it’s frustrating, at home it’s even more frustrating. But on the other hand, that’s where we need to keep our head up.”
Vasseur was quick to apologise to his driver and vowed to improve Ferrari’s communication.
“He’s been a bit frustrated in Monaco for a couple of years now and for sure yesterday was tough,” said the Frenchman.
“It was tough first to lose the pole position for one tenth or something like this, to lose the first row for two hundredths, and then the call.
©Ferrari
“What can I do else than apologise on behalf of the team and to understand how we can do a better job, and to improve the communication between the pitwall and Charles in this condition, but on both sides.
“I think it’s also due to the circumstances where its happened, into the tunnel and so on. But okay, we have to avoid to try to find excuses because it’s the worst way if you want to improve, we just have to correct.”
Pondering what may have been had Leclerc started his race P3, Vasseur reckoned the Monegasque would have enjoyed “another race” altogether.
“We made a mistake yesterday clearly and this cost us a lot because I think starting from P3 it could have been another race, but we have to learn from it,” he said.
“Honestly, I’m not looking trying to find an excuse or something like this, we have to review completely the situation tomorrow.
“I didn’t want to do it yesterday evening because we are focused on the race. But tomorrow we will have a look on this.”
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Ferrari apologised to Leclerc for Q3 communication blunder F1i.com.
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