Adam Cooper F1

Ferrari Formula 1 boss Fred Vasseur admits that the Italian team was in “a bit of chaos” as it tried to juggle the interests of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc in Las Vegas.

Both drivers suffered badly with tyre graining and swapped places several times over the course of the race.

At one stage Sainz was asking to come in and change tyres, and when he did head for the pitlane he was told at the last second to stay out.

Sainz also had to let Leclerc past without also letting the closely following Hamilton by as well.

Vasseur acknowledged that graining had made life difficult for the team.

“It’s really depending of the pace that you want to have,” he said. “And I think Charles was behind Russell, and when he tried one lap to push and to overtake Russell, he blew up everything.

“It’s really on the edge always. And they have to trust their feeling also. And it’s not an easy one, but it is like it is.

“It’s true that at the end of the first stint in four or five laps we lost something like 10 seconds. And then you can’t pit also, because you are in the shadow of the mid-pack.

“And if you pit at this stage, you have to overtake everybody. You have to wait for the others, and it’s what happened with Carlos. You have to wait that the others are pitting to pit yourself. And it’s a tricky situation.”

At the chequered flag Sainz was in front of Leclerc, who expressed his anger about how the race had unfolded over team radio.

It was not the first time in 2024 that there has been some frustration in the camp over strategy choices, but Vasseur played it down.

“We’ll have to discuss this,” he said. “Because at this stage of the race we were discussing with Carlos for the pit stop, what I was explaining, that he was in the shadow of Lawson, Tsunoda, perhaps.

“And he wanted to pit, we wanted to keep him on track. We were discussing like this, and on the top, we had to swap. It was a bit of chaos. When they are into the car, they have their own vision of this. But don’t worry, we’ll discuss it later today.”

Regarding Leclerc’s anger he added: “I’m not worried at all. Again, it’s always the same story that they have to make comments, or they don’t have to make comments, but they are doing comments on the in-lap, and they don’t have always the full picture. We will discuss together, and it won’t be an issue.”

Vasseur admitted that it isn’t easy to manage the tyres in Las Vegas.

“I think the conditions in Vegas are more than extreme for tons of reasons, the level of grip, the track temperature. For sure, it’s not something that we’ll have until the end of the season. It will be different stories.

“And as it’s a completely new situation each time that you are coming to Vegas, and it’s a very fine tuning. It’s not easy to predict, and even on the race I think if you have a look, we struggled a lot on the first stint, but the last stint was okay, it’s not that you are miles away.

“So it was true for us, but true for other teams. It means that you are not completely out of the scope. It’s just a fine tuning.

“And perhaps the fact also that we did a long stint on the hard before the weekend, but when you long stint the medium, you did three push before, and the graining is already open, it means that it’s putting all the team in a tricky situation. But again, it’s not an excuse.”

Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner says that Max Verstappen has been “outstanding” in 2024 on his way to a fourth World Championship – and has been inspiration to the whole team.

Verstappen dominated the early races but as RBR stumbled and rivals McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes caught up the Dutchman had a much tougher time.

However he managed to maintain his lead and his recent win in Brazil opened the door for him to secure the title in Las Vegas on Saturday night.

Horner compared the achievement with Verstappen’s first success, achieved at the Abu Dhabi finale three years ago.

“I think this was, together with 2021, the toughest,” he said. “This one, we started the season very strongly. But by Miami, it was clear that McLaren had made a significant step.

“But Max, when you look back at the season as a whole, and you think back to the races, he won in Imola and Barcelona and Montreal that were all very tough, closely-fought races.

“Through the summer months when we were struggling a bit with a car he was still second in Silverstone, he was second in Zandvoort. He was still picking up big podiums and results.

“And behind the scenes, was putting a massive amount of effort in with the engineers and designers and on the simulator, more than any of the previous years.

“And I think he’s been outstanding this year, not only what he’s done in the cockpit, and I think he’s inspired within the cockpit, but out of the cockpit as well, the way he’s conducted himself, the way he’s worked with the engineers and all the technical staff has been phenomenal.”

Horner agreed with Verstappen’s suggestion that for 70% of the season RBR did not have the fastest car.

“I would say it was about right,” he said. “Since Miami, I would say that was a turning point. And the car was difficult to drive.

“It was very difficult to drive, but he was able to adapt and get the most out of it. I think we’ve improved it in latter races, but certainly around Monza time, it looked like the championship was slipping away.”

The team hit at low at the Italian GP in September, where the RB20 was uncompetitive, and Verstappen suggested that he wouldn’t win if that form was continued.

“Monza, there’s still a long way the championship to go,” said Horner. “And we had a significant disadvantage to McLaren, Ferrari and even the Mercedes at that point.

“And I think the engineers have worked tirelessly, and the men and women behind the scenes have worked long hours, early mornings, weekends to keep getting performance to the car.

“And for me, a real turning point was Austin, getting the sprint race victory there, getting on the front row for the Grand Prix, the podium that he scored there.

“And then of course Brazil was really the crowning moment. In many respects, it was such an outstanding drive that provided the match point here, and he converted it relatively straightforwardly.”

Horner admitted that this success means a lot given that it was achieved during what was a difficult season for the team.

“I think this one is a very special victory, because obviously, there have been challenges this year,” he said. “But I think that Max has scored more than double the amount of race wins than any other driver.

“He’s won it with two races to go. He’s been head and shoulders, the best driver on the grid in F1. And I think what he’s really done this year is absolutely cement his position amongst the greats in the sport. And I think that both statistically and on the way that he’s driven, that’s unquestionable now.

“He’s been inspirational from within the cockpit because weekend-in, weekend-out, he’s been delivering, and he’s driven brilliantly this year, and that obviously inspires the rest of the team.

“You only have to watch the out lap at the beginning of any Grand Prix weekend to see the level of confidence, the level of self-belief that he has in himself.

“And I think he’s driven with real maturity this year, because we haven’t had the fastest car at every race, and on the days that we haven’t had the fastest car, he’s made sure that he’s extracted the absolute best out of it and scored big points.”

Vegas didn’t go to plan for Ferrari. Picture: @tinnekephotography

Carlos Sainz said that “no one’s happy today in the team” after he and Ferrari colleague Charles Leclerc finished third and fourth in the Las Vegas GP.

The pair suffered from more tyre graining than had been anticipated in a race that proved difficult for the team to manage as the pair battled on track.

Sainz challenged his team on pit strategy and was also caught out when he was heading into the pitlane and was told at the last second to stay on track as the crew was not ready for him.

In so doing he lost extra time as well as having to complete one more lap on tyres that were past their best.

Leclerc expressed his frustration how the race unfolded with a sweary rant on the radio on the in-lap.

Sainz could not challenge George Russell and Lewis Hamilton up ahead, and insisted that graining and an overall lack of pace relative to Mercedes were the main issues.

“More challenges, more things going on than maybe what we expected,” he said. “I think today Mercedes was just the quicker car, the quicker package. I think George and Lewis drove a very good race.

“At the same time that us, we just struggled too much with graining, more than what we were anticipating. And yeah, it meant that we couldn’t push on the tyres.

“We were having to save so much that we couldn’t use the pace of the car. And yeah, we were just simply not fast enough. So yeah, not our day.”

Regarding how strategy played out he admitted that the team had made mistakes.

“We just simply didn’t execute in general,” he said. “We just didn’t execute a very good race. I think we stayed out one lap too late on mediums, two laps too late on hards.

“And by the time I was going to pit, we had this messy radio communication in the pit entry, which probably made me lose that lap that I was completely grained, and I had to let pass Charles plus the two or three seconds that I lost in the pit entry.

“That means a lot of race time that maybe would have meant we could have ended up fighting Lewis. But yeah, it just shows that in this sport, you need to do things perfectly week in, week out.

“We’ve been doing things really well in strategy and on race management all year around. But today wasn’t our day. We just didn’t do things well, and we will have to learn from it and make sure we come back in Qatar stronger.”

Expanding on how the race unfolded Sainz made it clear that he wasn’t happy with some of the calls.

“I think he grained the medium tyres and I managed to get ahead before the pit stop on mediums,” he said.

“Then I did grain my hards and he was coming quick behind me and me anticipating what was going to be a situation, because Lewis was straight behind Charles at the time, and I was pretty sure the team was going to ask me to let Charles by because he was quicker at the time.

“As I was on grained tyres, I asked the team two or three times to box me, to get me out of the way, and get me a new set of hards to make sure that I wasn’t losing a lot of race time by having to let Charles by and then having to fight Lewis at the same time.

“For some reason we didn’t box, and I ended up having to let Charles by a lap later than was planned and losing a lot of race time. And by the time I was going to box, then we didn’t even box.

“So I guess he’s not happy, but I’m also not happy with the way things were handled at the time.

“And yeah, I think no one’s happy today in the team because we all expected a bit more. I’m on the podium, so at least I got that for the team. But at the same time, I don’t think we could have finished much better than P3 and P4 today.”

Lewis Hamilton was left stranded in 10^th on the grid for the Las Vegas GP after his previously quick Mercedes W15 “started snapping away” in the crucial Q3 session.

Having been fast throughout practice Hamilton was second to team mate George Russell in Q1 and then fastest in Q2.

However he lost his first run in Q3 with a trip up an escape road and his second with an oversteering moment. He failed to set a flying lap time and had to settle for 10^th while Russell took pole.

“I didn’t do the job,” he said. “The car felt different in Q3, and stability was not there for some reason. I’d had it in all the other sessions. But ultimately I just didn’t put the laps together.

“I mean, the tyres were difficult. That’s why we did a prep lap. And I think that was the wrong call to do a prep lap on my side. And then it kind of domino-effected from there.”

Hamilton admitted that the team doesn’t know why the W15 is working so well in Las Vegas.

“We think it’s tyres, but we don’t know why we’re fast this weekend,” he said. “It must be something to do with temperatures.

“It has been really good up until then. And obviously you saw my pace, and then just as it got to Q3, it started snapping away. “

Asked if losing a chance at pole in one of his final races with Mercedes was a stinger he said: “Not really. I feel great, to be honest. I wish I was on pole. George is on pole.

“It’s great for the team. It’s not a stinger. Move forwards. I’ve got three shots, three pops at it, two more pops in the next races, and see how that goes. The good thing is, I’ve got pace.”

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin admitted that the race will be a step into the unknown.

“We’ve had a fast car all weekend and there was a real possibility of us locking out the front row,” he said. “It was a tricky session, and George did a great job to take pole position.

“Lewis had shown fantastic speed throughout, and was unlucky to have issues on both his laps in Q3. Unfortunately, that left him P10 for tomorrow.

 “The car has been working really well on a single lap. That has been the case from the first laps of FP1 all the way through to the final lap of Q3. However, it’s a lot harder to read where we will be on long run pace.

“The graining caused by the cool temperature is dominating the degradation and because some pushed early in their runs in FP2, whilst others managed their tyres, it’s hard to know where everything will fall out tomorrow.”

Sergio Perez’s difficult recent run continued in Las Vegas when he failed to progress from Q1 and had to settle for 16^th place on the grid.

Perez and team mate Max Verstappen both found the Red Bull RB20 unsuited to the street track, with the lack of a low drag rear wing relative to rivals causing a compromise.

However while Verstappen was able to make it to Q3 and qualify fifth Perez fell at the first hurdle.

“We’ve been lacking a lot of pace through the qualifying, and that’s been the main issue, really, for us,” said the Mexican.

“So it didn’t get any better. And in hindsight, we should have used two sets, given that we were not so competitive in Q1.

“The main struggle is really at low-speed with the tyres, that is where the main struggle comes from.

“I think just compromising the low-speed has been quite tricky. And then the sliding – I feel like if I slide a little bit too much one tyre, then I finish it.”

Expanding on his problems he said: “I think we got a fundamental issue at the moment with the car that is just not working for me, and it’s where the whole brain is going, to try and fix it up instead of being compromising.

“And at the moment we come to the weekends and we just explore a lot of things, and then it’s just a difficult one to make it work.

“It’s obviously not ideal. You want to be up there, especially when I know what I can do.

“But when you don’t have that grip underneath you, then it’s really hard, and you’re prone to a lot of mistakes and so on.”

Perez remains hopeful that the RB20 is better over a race distance.

“I think tomorrow is going to be a very tricky one,” he said. “So there’s a long race ahead. A lot of things will happen, and I believe that we are more competitive come races, because yesterday we looked a lot better over the long race than over a single lap.”