Ferrari had the entire front row at Monaco and that’s usually a guarantee of success. Overtaking is almost impossible on the tight street circuit, so the “track situation” is worth its weight in gold. Admittedly, it’s more complex than usual from the front row when it’s raining, but when P1 is on the grid and P4 is at the finish line, something went wrong along the way. It is a conclusion that Mattia Binotto also draws, recognizing that several tricks have fallen at the tactical level.
“When you’re leading the race and it ends like that, it’s clear you made mistakes. We made mistakes, especially in our estimates and our decisions,” begins Binotto, among others, in the conversation Motorsport.com† As previously mentioned, these decisions started with the switch from full rain tires to intermediates. Ferrari then had three options and chose the worst. “The first mistake was that we underestimated Perez’s speed on Intermediates.”
Ferrari therefore decided not to react immediately to Red Bull’s undercut a lap later and that would have been one of the two better options knowing today. “We misjudged the distances to other cars and thus also the position on the track. The first mistake was that we should have caught Charles earlier, at least one lap earlier. If we hadn’t reacted immediately like we did, t , then we should have stayed out much longer. Then we should have continued on the full rain tires and immediately switched to slicks to protect our track position,” says Binotto, naming the second option, which would have been better.
Latecomers are no excuse, says Binotto
To mitigate this, both Ferraris were impacted by traffic surrounding the pit stops. Binotto admits that his drivers lost time because of other cars – read: Albon and Latifi – but absolutely does not want to use that as an excuse. “No, we can’t speak of bad luck either. It’s no longer about good or bad luck. These are mistakes, mistakes in our own judgment. If you’re leading the race in Monaco, you have to hold that position or, in the worst case, finish second. Finishing fourth shows that we did something wrong ourselves, so it’s no longer about good or bad luck.”
Leclerc said after the race that Ferrari should get to the bottom of the matter as mistakes like this should not happen again. Binotto agrees with his driver and indicates that the tactical errors will be further investigated in the coming days. “Now that we’ve made these mistakes, they’re all very easy to see. But above all, we need to understand which process and mechanisms led to the errors mentioned. It will take some time to formulate a clear answer to that.”
