Ferrari Team Principal Reveals How Leclerc And Sainz 'Lost Control Of The Situation' In Mexico City

Tuesday, 31 October 2023 at 17:30

Scuderia Ferrari F1 team principal Frederic Vasseur reflected on the 2023 Mexico City Grand Prix at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

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.

Leclerc, who was in front of Sainz, found himself sandwiched between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, going three-wide into the first corner and colliding with Perez.

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."

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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."

The Ferrari due achieved a P3 and P4 in the end, finishing the race behind Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton in the second place and Verstappen in the first place.

"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."