Frederic Vasseur’s Biggest Mistake Exposed, as F1 Pundit Decodes Charles Leclerc’s Frustrations in Canada

“Everyone in the team is rather frustrated,”  said Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur after a double Q2 knockout in Canada. Charles Leclerc in P11 and Carlos Sainz in P12 were probably the last possibilities on anybody’s mind, let alone Ferrari. Reserve driver Oliver Bearman looked stupefied as the cameras cut to him after their heartbreak. Now it is Vasseur who is shouldering all the blame.

Coming into the Canadian GP weekend, McLaren’s Lando Norris declared Ferrari the favorite for victory. Responding to this, Leclerc brushed it off as mind games. But the mind games worked. Sainz revealed that Ferrari’s SF24 struggled with grip, and their tires couldn’t work properly. Despite them still being in the game for a points finish in the race, renowned Italian journalist Leo Turrini has exposed Frederic Vasseur’s first mistake of 2024.

“This on Saturday in Montreal is the first mistake of Fred Vasseur’s pit wall (this) season,” Turrini wrote on his blog. “Let me explain. With the limitations that the SF24 showed in Canada, I really don’t think Leclerc and Sainz could have fought for pole. But that’s why I didn’t understand tire management,” he added, emphasizing Ferrari’s key slip-up. “Understandably, both Charles and Carlos were decently pissed off. I think it was an excess of presumption.”

The Italian also highlighted how the converging grid is reducing the margin for error. “In today’s F1, the differences on the flying lap are minimal,” he continued. “Compared to the not-so-distant past, there are a lot of cars in the classic handkerchief. In the race it’s different, but in qualifying you can’t afford to get drunk anymore. Period, colon, and semicolon. Too bad, really. Expectations were obviously of a completely different kind. Starting so far back is a guarantee of suffering.”

Turrini also said that race day is a different battle in itself, and the Ferrari boys can make up for their Qualifying misfire. A change in weather or a safety car could prove massively beneficial for them. But one thing is positive: the Maranello outfit is not shifting blame amongst themselves.

Frederic Vasseur stops the excuse game to take accountability for Ferrari’s Qualifying failure

Friday in Montreal was a great way to kick off the race weekend for Ferrari. Both drivers in the scarlet red were happy, but that didn’t carry on into Saturday. FP3 was terrible, with Charles Leclerc calling his SF24 “extremely slow” on the radio. Though Sainz’s lap in Qualifying was relatively quicker until the last corner, his slide into the main straight cost him valuable tenths. The frequently changing weather was an added challenge, but Frederic Vasseur didn’t use it as an excuse.

“The new asphalt is the same for everybody,” the Ferrari boss said, as quoted by GPblog. “I think the conditions are a bit extreme with the wet, with the drops and so on, and the cold conditions, and it’s probably difficult to switch on, but it’s not an excuse at all. The conditions are the same for everybody, and we have to deal with the conditions.”

With both VCARBs, Aston Martins, and Alex Albon’s Williams upsetting them, Ferrari has an uphill task for the Canadian GP today. Praying to the weather gods while optimizing their tire temperatures and setup looks like the way to go.