Vasseur admits Ferrari were 'scared' in British GP misunderstanding

Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur has admitted the team were "scared" over the threat of tyre degradation in the British Grand Prix that did not materialise.

The team started both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz on the Mediums tyres at Silverstone, with Leclerc on course for a conventional Medium-Hard strategy before pitting once again on Lap 32 under the Safety Car for Mediums once again.

Tyre degradation was not a factor in the race, evidenced by George Russell starting on a used set of Softs and going to Lap 28, while Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton were among those to put Softs on at their only pitstops.

Ferrari would eventually claim ninth and 10th through Leclerc and Sainz on a disappointing day, having lined up fourth and fifth, with Vasseur admitting lessons from earlier in the season were on the team's mind.

Ferrari's early season lessons

"We had the feeling after Qualifying that we could have done a much better job than this," Vasseur told media including RacingNews365.

"We can't be happy finishing P9 and P10, but now we need to have a deep look at the weekend, not just the the race.

"I think we didn't do a long stint on Friday, we launched onto only the Soft compound and Charles was stuck in the garage, we were a bit scared with the [tyre] degradation.

"Probably somewhere in the mind where the first races of the season, but we were far too conservative with the tyre management and we didn't push enough.

"We were a bit unlucky with the Safety Car, but this is not in our hands - we don't have to think about this, we have to think about what we can manage.

"We were fighting with Russell, and thinking that we will beat and have to fight with him, but now after the race, it is quite easy to say that we will have to extend and push more on the tyres.

"But I think when we lost the most was not at this stage of the race, it is when we put the Hard on Charles - we did something like 10 or 12 laps before the Safety Car and the deg was zero so we could have pushed much more.

"It was a misunderstanding of the data - coming from Friday [when Leclerc missed Free Practice 2 with an electrical problem.]"