To reiterate the obvious, qualifying is everything in the Principality of Monaco. Keeping it together during the close kisses to the barrier, or while you are blazing in the tunnel, are some basic rules drivers need to follow. While Charles Leclerc fell short of claiming the pole, failing to equal records with Ayrton Senna, Monaco Curse wasn’t done yet. Leclerc was also handed a three-place grid penalty to add to the miseries. However, he has found support from his team principal.

Frederic Vasseur, who has worked with Charles ever since he was a young boy stepping into F1, is now his team TP again. And always looking out for Leclerc, Vasseur has justified the mistake Leclerc made when he accidentally impeded Lando Norris in the tunnel. What happened was a slow-moving Charles inside the tunnel, in a way obstructed a flying lap Lando was on and this brought forward the steward’s wrath.

As quoted by Formula Passion, Fred said, “I saw what happened at the end of practice, but in that phase of the track, it’s not easy. The trajectory is not clear, and it is more complicated in the tunnel because it is dark. Charles was on the inside, and Lando expected him to go to the right, but that’s not the race line.” [Translated using Google]

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Despite the underwhelming qualifying, there might be light at the end of the tunnel.

Frederic Vasseur tries to look at the glass half full with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz

Frederic Vasseur is chasing his first Ferrari win as a team principal and it has become almost shy of them at the Circuit de Monaco with a botchy qualifying and subsequent penalty on Saturday. He said he expected more of a position considering the close margin that separates the top three. Nevertheless, he is hopeful.

He said, “However, we have two cars in the top 5 and tomorrow it will be an advantage to play with these positions in the race. We lacked something more in FP3. We were further away, but we managed to recover for qualifying. Now we have to react to do well in the race. If we talk about a few tenths, we can say that the performance is there.”

“Now we have to put everything together to solve some small details. Perhaps what we lacked was optimizing FP3, because in qualifying we were there from the start, evidently, we made a mistake.” [Translated using Google]

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Do you think Ferrari can claim a win or a podium in the race tomorrow?