Ferrari have revealed the findings of their investigation into what went wrong for them during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend. The team had looked on course for a promising result after Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz locked out the front row following Saturday's qualifying. Leclerc initially lead from pole position, but ended up finishing the race down in fourth. Sainz, meanwhile, still managed to claim second place, but lost out on a potential victory to Sergio Perez. Following the events, Ferrari have analysed how a possible win slipped away from them in Monte Carlo. In a video released by the Italian squad, Chief Strategist Inaki Rueda explains: "We came into this race with very high expectations, we expect a very competitive car. "On Saturday, we ascertained that that was the case. A front row lock-out in Monte Carlo [is] something that we're very proud of, something that is very difficult to attain."
How Sainz lost out on victory
For Sainz, it looked like a win could be possible. However, a Williams car threw a spanner in the works. "[On] Sunday, the race got delayed [by] a full hour, and we actually started to shift our focus," Rueda said. "Rather than all the pre-race dry plans that we had, we needed to start thinking about how we would manage a wet race. "With Carlos, we had a very good race. He started P2, and after the first round of stops, he found himself leading the race, because although our initial plan was to try and cover Perez, we had the peace of mind to realise it was not going to work. "[At] the last second, we told Carlos to stay out, and he duly did so. Furthermore, when the time was right, we judged that the track would be quickest on dry tyres, and Carlos was the first car of the lead pack to stop for dry [tyres]. "This gave him a definite advantage. Unfortunately, he came up behind [Nicholas] Latifi, and this cost him over three seconds. Had he not been blocked by Latifi, we are quite confident he would have won the race."
The first mistake with Leclerc
It was a tough loss for Sainz, but teammate Leclerc perhaps had an even more disappointing day, having dropped from P1 to P4 at his home race. Rueda says that there were two errors that led to this. "We've spoken about the positives, now let's go over the negatives," Rueda continued. "With Charles, we made two mistakes. The first one was to cover Perez. While with Carlos we realised very late on his lap that we could not cover Perez, with Charles we had a big gap, and we thought we could cover Perez. "At the start of his in-lap, Charles had over 10 seconds [of an] advantage on Perez, and we thought this advantage would shrink, because Perez – on the Intermediate tyre – was lapping much faster than Charles. "We had looked at other people, we had the live data from the cars, and we thought that this gap would shrink from around 10 seconds to maybe five, four, three seconds at the worst. "As we were coming in, we saw that 10-second gap shrinking. As Charles is coming through the Swimming Pool, the last timing reference we have indicates that he will come out one second ahead of Perez. "What we did not expect was Perez to go nine seconds faster overall in that lap and, because of this, we lost the race with Charles."
Second mistake allowed Verstappen to benefit
Despite losing position to Perez, Leclerc initially remained ahead of the Mexican's Red Bull teammate, Max Verstappen. However, things went from bad to worse when Leclerc was again pitted to switch to dry weather tyres. The Monegasque was brought in at the same time as Sainz, losing time in the process. "The second mistake we made with Charles was a gap mistake again," Rueda added. "We wanted to pit both cars onto dry tyres. On Lap 21, we thought the track was good for dry tyres, and at the same time we were bringing Carlos in to try and keep the lead of the race, we thought, 'Let's bring [in] Charles to try and undercut Perez, so we can finish P1 and P2'. "[As] we were coming in, we were looking at our gaps. The gap in-between our cars was five seconds. It was tight for a double-pit. A comfortable double-pit is done with six seconds in-between the cars, but we thought five and a half seconds might be enough. "As the cars got closer and closer to pit entry, the gap was was narrowed [to] only three and a half seconds. We made a last-second attempt to try and tell Charles to stay out, but it was too late. "He had already veered into the pit lane. In this stop, Charles lost two seconds. This was crucial. Why? This is what allowed Verstappen to come out ahead of Charles a lap later." While Rueda admits that it was a "bittersweet" weekend for the Scuderia, he has vowed that the team will come back "stronger" from the events of Monaco.
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