Ferrari Fails And Picks Worst Strategy For Both Races Of United States Grand Prix Weekend

Scuderia Ferrari F1 drivers Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc reflected on the team's strategy choices after the 2023 United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas.

The Scuderia Ferrari team had a pretty decent start to the 2023 United States Grand Prix weekend when Charles Leclerc put his car on a pole to start the Sunday race from first position.

His teammate Carlos Sainz qualified fourth, so Ferrari had arguably the best Qualifying result out of all the teams on the grid. Sprint Shootout qualifying went a bit worse for Ferrari, but still decent, with Leclerc in 2nd position and Sainz in 6th.

The first strategy mistake of the weekend was to put Carlos Sainz on soft compound tires as the only driver on the grid for the 19-laps-long Sprint race.

While the Spanish driver managed to hold on to his sixth position, he told the media after the sprint race, that he would like to avoid such gambles in the future.

The second strategy mistake ruined the Sunday race for Charles Leclerc. Monegasque was the only driver on the grid to finish the race with only one pit stop.

This strategy lost Leclerc a lot of time as he was also later overtaken by his teammate Carlos Sainz in the same car who started from fourth place, but did two stops. Leclerc told F1 after the race:

Leclerc hinted there was some problem with numbers not adding up or not reflecting reality. He continued: "I felt good in the car all weekend and our race pace wasn’t bad, so it’s a shame that we didn’t bring home a better result."

On the other hand, the strategy did not affect Leclerc's final result, as he got disqualified for a technical breach after his car didn't pass technical control following the race finish.