Charles Leclerc Suffers From “Peak Ferrari Strategy” as Fans Enjoy Fred Vasseur and Co’s Blunder

Only one race weekend after creating history at the Monaco GP, Charles Leclerc has suffered his first DNF of 2024. Despite starting the Canadian GP weekend relatively happier, Ferrari slid down on Saturday, and Sunday has worsened. Team Principal Frederic Vasseur and his pit wall were under heavy fire after their qualifying failure. The trolling has amplified after the Monegasque’s retirement midway through the race.

In FP3, Leclerc described his SF24 as “extremely slow.” His car couldn’t let go of this tag as Ferrari witnessed a double Q2 knockout, with Carlos Sainz trailing his teammate in P12. Despite such an unexpected failure, on his girlfriend Alexandra Saint Mleux’s birthday today, Leclerc declared that a podium finish was his target. But with his SF24 nursing an engine issue from Lap 1, all hopes were out the window.

“Impossible to overtake with this issue,” he told his race engineer on the team radio. A couple of seemingly tense radio exchanges followed, as his race engineer didn’t give him the desired answers to his questions. Eventually, Ferrari got the much-required Safety Car window to solve Leclerc’s engine issue. And they did, taking an unusually long 24-second pit stop. But sending him out on the Hard tires in wet conditions when all other drivers were on the Intermediates destroyed his race.

This decision caused the eventual retirement and ended his weekend prematurely. Fans quickly took to social media to give Frederic Vasseur & Co. an earful for their mess.

Charles Leclerc’s misery-filled Canadian GP restores Ferrari’s bad image

Under Frederic Vasseur’s leadership, Ferrari had managed to turn the tide on their strategic mismanagement. However, the Canadian GP served as a stark reminder of their past blunders, leaving fans disheartened.

A screenshot of 18 drivers racing on Intermediate tires while Charles Leclerc sat dead-last with the Hard tires became a symbol of Ferrari’s blunders, and one fan couldn’t help but point out the irony, adding a touch of humor to the situation.

Like 2022, Max Verstappen again took the lead as Ferrari, who weren’t in contention anyway, deepened this troubles. Another fan echoed the previous as the Maranello outfit underwent this horrible déjà vu.

Ferrari became the subject of mass trolling as taunts rolled in, one after the other. One X user even revived the old meme-like, robotic statement that Leclerc’s ex-race engineer became famous for: “We are checking.”

Someone also highlighted how the Monegasque always suffers when Ferrari messes up and not his teammate. Though Carlos Sainz DNFed, too, it was because of a racing incident rather than a strategic blunder.

Another fan commended Ferrari for fixing the mystery engine issue under the safety car. But the absurd decision to not continue with the Intermediates on a track that was getting wetter was unfathomable for them.

The team’s post-race debrief will surely be a heated one. With both Sainz and Leclerc succumbing to the changing weather conditions and some blunders, a bitter reality check has been served. McLaren looks quicker than them, and Ferrari will begin the Spanish GP in square one.