"We can't afford to do that"; Charles Leclerc questioned the strategic decisions of his Ferrari team after a costly mistake saw him drop from first to fourth in the Monaco GP; Max Verstappen took advantage of the tyre change error to go ahead of his Championship rival and finish in third
Sunday 29 May 2022 18:53, UK
Charles Leclerc slammed Ferrari's strategy mistakes at the Monaco GP after plummeting from first to fourth, with the home favourite admitting his latest crushing setback "hurts a lot".
Leclerc, the fastest man all weekend, had looked primed to finally win in Monte Carlo after leading early on in tricky wet conditions before a flurry of incorrect and ultimately costly pit-stop calls from his team.
First, Ferrari did not react to Sergio Perez's pace on intermediates, and the Mexican, who eventually won the race, managed to undercut Leclerc. Then, Ferrari called in Carlos Sainz for his first stop onto slicks and also Leclerc at the same time, before then telling him to "stay out".
But it was too late, and Leclerc was forced to wait for Sainz's stop to finish and dropped to fourth behind Max Verstappen.
Leclerc was furious on team radio, shouting: "****! ****! Why? Why? What are you doing?!" And after missing out on even a podium in Monaco, he said after the race: "The season is long, but we cannot do that."
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 afterwards, Leclerc said he was not "let down" but criticised his team for the "wrong" calls.
"Sometimes mistakes can happen but there has been too many mistakes today overall," stressed Leclerc.
"Obviously in those conditions, you rely a little bit on what the team can see because you don't see what the others are doing with intermediates, with dry tyres.
"I have been asked questions about whether I wanted to go from the intermediates to the slicks and I said yes but not now, it will be a bit later on in the race.
"But I don't understand what made us change our mind and go on these intermediates, I got undercut and then got stuck behind Carlos.
"There has been a lot of mistakes and we can't afford to do that."
Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto admitted the mistakes afterwards.
"I fully understand the disappointment for Charles, he was first and finishing fourth means that something was wrong in the decision we made.
"So clearly we need to review it and I think we underestimated the speed of the intermediate at that stage and so we could have called a lap earlier for Charles or later on, maybe we should have left him outside on the extreme wet then going on the dry.
"These are mistakes that may happen but more importantly it is a lesson to learn to try and understand why they happened and I am sure that is a process we will do it."
It isn't the first time Leclerc has been left heartbroken at his first race. While 2022 was actually the first time he finished it, that wasn't any solace.
He is also now nine points behind Verstappen in the title race.
"It is hard, as it has been the other years here so I am getting used to getting back home disappointed but we cannot do that, especially in the moment we are in now," added Leclerc.
"We are extremely strong, our pace is strong, we need to take those opportunities and we cannot lose so many points like this.
"It is not even from first to second it is first to fourth because after the first mistake we have done another one.
"I love my team and I am sure I will come back stronger but it hurts a lot.
"I think the first one was a very clear decision and a very wrong one and from that moment on the mess started.
"I don't know if it is panic, I obviously don't hear all the background radio that there is in the team but yeah, this is not up to me to judge.
"Obviously, the message that I had wasn't clear, the last wasn't clear because I was told to come in but then to stay out but I was already in the pit lane and that is where I basically let it all out on the radio and screamed because I knew I just couldn't do anything and I was done."
Paul Di Resta: "I never felt like Ferrari were on the front foot.
"I know they were leading the race and trying to protect that, at any point do you go from an extreme wet to a slick comfortably? I don't think that you do.
"When you look at the track advantage when you go onto the intermediates, six or seven seconds, that's what Charles can't see but the team can see that. The team need to give him the information."
Nico Rosberg: "It's never been a strength of theirs [strategy] in fact, it's been quite a weakness all of these years and they've never really improved.
"The best strategically are usually Red Bull and Mercedes by far, Ferrari really needs to raise their level so far.
"In saying that, they really were extremely difficult decisions out there today."
