Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur says the fan response to the amended schedule at the Sao Paulo Grand Prix shows Formula 1 and the FIA made the right choices.
Heavy rain and thunderstorms led to qualifying being postponed from Saturday to Sunday morning, and with another worrying forecast for Sunday afternoon the race itself was pulled forward by 90 minutes. That led to a 7:30am qualifying session that saw Lando Norris take pole before Max Verstappen’s stunning victory, and Vasseur says the queues of fans waiting to get in reminded him it was the right call for those attending.
“We can’t complain,” Vasseur said. “At the end of the day, we were able to do the race. I think the race was a good one. What we have to keep in mind is that when I came at 5am there were already thousands of fans outside and at least for them it’s important to do the job.
“For sure, the conditions were not ideal for the team, for everybody, but at the end of the day it was the only option to do the race and I think it was a good one.”
Charles Leclerc’s fifth place helped limit the damage in the constructors’ championship between Ferrari and McLaren, but the Monegasque blamed himself for setup choices hurting his pace, something Vasseur disagrees with.
“He’s always the first one to blame himself but I’m not sure he’s in charge of the setup. It was a difficult Sunday, but I think overall it’s not a dramatic weekend. And it’s more on some choices that it was quite difficult to anticipate, things like the pit stop. You can say at the end of the day if you stay on track and you are waiting for the red flag it’s the right call, but if you crash you look stupid.
“Honestly, these kinds of weekends are quite difficult to manage from the pit wall and the car; but it’s more the pace and the setup because the pace was really difficult. We were seven tenths [of a second] slower than Norris at the beginning of the stint and probably six or seven tenths faster than him at the end.”
