Yahoo Autos No team orders was the right call at Monza, says Ferrari’s Vasseur
Fred Vasseur said he was proud of Ferrari’s approach in allowing Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc to fight throughout the Italian Grand Prix, and of how the drivers responded.
Sainz had started from pole position with Leclerc third, and the pair raced closely with Max Verstappen before he took the lead on lap 15. After another battle with Sergio Perez, the pair were then left to contest the final podium position at Ferrari’s home race without the intervention of team orders.
“If I froze the positions, you would have exactly the same question – why did you freeze the situation?” Vasseur said. “For sure, it’s much easier to comment when you have a happy ending, but it was also the best way to thank everybody for the support of the Tifosi.
“On this I want to have the last call, and I told them no risks. You can race, but no risks. Of course, that is all relative, but I was much more comfortable with this situation than to freeze something.”
Sainz was the driver coming under pressure regularly but says Ferrari had already discussed how the outright pace of each car could be clouded by the impact of DRS and the slipstream at Monza, while still understanding the importance of a top three finish to each driver in front of so many Ferrari fans.
“We knew the car in DRS is always going to feel like it’s the quicker car, but we know that around this track, once you get into DRS you feel quicker and we knew that,” Sainz said. “At the same time, we know that we were both going to be fighting for a podium at Monza, so there was always going to be a bit of a fight and a bit of a battle.
“In the end we kept it clean, there were a couple of nice moves here and there, tight battles, but I enjoyed, honestly, battling Max, battling Checo, battling Charles, I think it was a good day for F1, a good show. I just did everything I could to stay in front and it worked.”
