Ferrari had a perfect start to the weekend when
Carlos Sainz and
Charles Leclerc, with pole position,
secured front-row lockout for the race on Sunday.
However, both Ferrari drivers did not have an optimal start off the line and got overtaken by two Red Bull drivers on the way to the first corner.
The perfect situation before the start therefore turned around for the Ferrari team already in the first corner. The team team principal Frederic Vasseur told Sky F1 after the race:
"I’m not satisfied with the start. It’s not a question of management, it’s that we started badly and gave the slipstream to everyone, losing control of the situation."
Vasseur accredits the first corner incident and the overall race result to the poor start off the line performed by his drivers, who then allowed Red Bull to get into the lead.
"First of all, if you start badly you lose ground from the others and lose the slipstream. This led Charles to being between Verstappen and Perez and, later, having contact with them. At that point part of the wing broke and we also had problems with Carlos."
"I would say, however, that the weekend isn’t so bad for the pace in qualifying and the pace in the first stint was also good despite having damage to the front wing on the car of Leclerc. We managed to stay close to Verstappen."
The race got red-flagged at one point because of the
big crash of Kevin Magnussen on Haas. Vasseur attributes the weaker performance of Ferrari cars to the consequent race restart which put the field together. He concluded:
"But then we struggled on the restart with the Hard tyres. Our race got much worse after the restart, at least compared to others. Third and fourth place are not dramatic, but we have to do better next race."