Vasseur explains 'most difficult' part of Ferrari job amid 'mistakes'

Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur admits that understanding what constitutes a mistake and what doesn't has proved to be one of the "most difficult" aspects of his role.

The team were left apologising to Charles Leclerc after an error in qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix resulted in the Monegasque not being alerted to Lando Norris' presence during Q3 in the tunnel. He was subsequently handed a three-place grid penalty for impeding the McLaren.

However, in regards to strategy decisions during Sunday's dry-wet race – in which Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished in P6 and P8 respectively – Vasseur stands by the calls that were made.

Vasseur on identifying mistakes at Ferrari

"The most important and the most difficult part of my job is to understand what is a mistake and what is not a mistake," Vasseur told media, including RacingNews365.com.

"We had some complaints about the strategy in the race, [but] the strategy on the race was not a mistake. We covered [Lewis] Hamilton on the first pit stop with Sainz and I think it was the good decision. I had a discussion with Carlos and we agreed on this.

"The second one was the call at the end [of the race]. We had two options – it was easier to be conservative, to pit early and to be fighting for P4, P5, something like this, all the way to a red flag or Safety Car and to expect to be on the podium.

"It's not a matter of strategy, it's a matter of assessment of risk and what you want to achieve. It's nothing to do with a mistake."

Mistake in Monaco qualifying

However, Vasseur acknowledges that the team need to learn from the error that occurred during qualifying in Monte Carlo.

"The proper mistake was Saturday," Vasseur continued.

"I think it was not just a matter of communication, it was probably focus, probably that we have to reinforce the group of communication with the engineers, but you can't have two people communicating with the car because it's a nightmare.

"It means that we have to enforce this for sure and to understand exactly what we can do – in Monaco, because it's a special one, and outside of Monaco for the next ones.

"But my job is also to take action and to take [a] decision as soon as I'm fairly convinced that we are weak somewhere, but it's an early stage for me.

"But clearly we made a mistake on Saturday."