Unrest within Ferrari increases: 'He didn't have the speed to overtake'

The Russian Grand Prix was another one for Sebastian Vettel to quickly forget. After a crash in qualifying, the German was also used as a sidekick by Charles Leclerc in the race. Ferrari, however, explains this situation differently.

After the Russian GP, Vettel was clear in his words. He didn't hold back and said that 'it was clear that he was left outside to slow down the Renaults'. This worked with Esteban Ocon, but Daniel Ricciardo passed the German. It all seemed to help Leclerc.

However, the person responsible for strategy at Ferrari, Inaki Rueda, has a different explanation for this. ''Vettel did not have the speed to overtake. An undercut on Grosjean and Giovinazzi was an option, but then he would have been stuck behind Magnussen for the whole race. We asked Vettel about the condition of his tyres and on that basis we stuck to our plan'', says Rueda according to Motorsport-total.com.

It caused Leclerc to move up to sixth place, but Vettel didn't get any further than P13. ''From lap 17 Seb made up more and more of his deficit and we came to a point where he could switch to the soft tyre. However, his tyres gave up earlier and with 23 laps to go the bet to go to the soft tyre was too big'', Rueda concluded.