Yahoo Autos Ferrari Falters In F1 Canadian Grand Prix
Ferrari’s season so far in 2024 has been one of progress, of not making the mistakes that dogged it in the past, and of extracting the maximum from the SF24. There were two victories, a double points finish at every grand prix, with Charles Leclerc grabbing a top four finish at every race to keep himself on the edge of a long shot title opportunity. That all came crashing down with a completely disastrous Canadian Grand Prix weekend.
From 11th and 12th on the grid, after a poor performance during qualifying, Leclerc was hamstrung by an engine issue while Sainz lost spots and got mired in the midfield. With Leclerc stricken and stranded in the pack Ferrari gambled on slick tires under the first safety car period but it was still way too wet, a situation accentuated when a forecasted shower struck a few minutes later, delaying the track drying process by a crucial few minutes. Leclerc dropped to a lapped last and duly retired from proceedings.
“The engine issue cost us everything,” Leclerc said. “We tried to go on slicks when we knew it was more of a chance that it wouldn’t work but we had to try something because we were out of the points anyway.”
Leclerc estimated he was losing 1.5 seconds per lap with the engine issue, with boss Frederic Vasseur later saying the car was down 80 horsepower, and as he was conducting his media interviews the TV screens showed teammate Sainz spinning off at Turn 6. The trajectory of the spinning Ferrari took Sainz into the helpless Alex Albon and despite the relatively tame impact it was game over for both cars.
“There was a lot of sliding around and no feeling with the car,” Sainz said of the early stages of the race. “When it dried we started to make some progress, I was having to take some risks, and I made a driver mistake. Not our weekend, we’ll try and reset and go again.”
Leclerc, who won last time out in Monaco, insisted Ferrari “shouldn’t overreact” to the off-color display as “you have good and bad weekends” but emphasized that “we have to understand what went wrong.
“This one hurts, it’s big points for the team with both cars out,” Leclerc concluded.
