Vasseur defends Ferrari's gamble after Hamilton's casino jibe: 'Easy to call with hindsight'
Photo: Race Pictures
Kada Sárközi joined GPblog as an editor ahead of the 2023 Formula 1 season. He graduated with a BA in Sports Journalism in the UK and has covered Grands Prix and other F1 events live.
Frederic Vasseur is standing by Ferrari's decision to start both Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc on slicks at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. Hamilton, meanwhile, believes the call cost him a shot at victory at Sepang.
The Ferrari team principal argued that splitting the strategy between the two cars was never the right answer. Speaking to Sky Sports Italia, Vasseur said: "When you are confident about making the right choice, you must apply it to both cars, as all teams do."
Vasseur: 'We were on the wrong side'
Vasseur did not deny that the call went wrong. He did say that Ferrari had plenty of company in making it, and that the picture was far from clear before the start.
"For sure, the choice of the tyres you can discuss at length, but I think 50% of the cars went for slick and 50% for inters. From the pit lane, you don't have the whole picture of the track and it's not easy to understand what is the exact situation. But, for sure, we were on the wrong side."
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He added: "It's easy to say after the race how things went, but the problem is you only know if it's right or wrong after lap one."
The Frenchman preferred to focus on how the team recovered. "Overall, it's a good result. If you consider that we were 21 and 22 on lap one, it's a very strong performance."
Photo: Race Pictures
Hamilton admits the win slipped away
Hamilton started from second on the grid, but the strategy call dropped him down to P17. He came back to finish third, but the podium left him with mixed feelings.
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"We’ll take the positives from this weekend, which the car was really good, and we’ll come back next week fighting. I thought today, as I said, was a chance for us potentially to try and fight Max for the win, but maybe we can do that next week," the seven-time world champion said.
He also added, jokingly, about Ferrari's gamble: "Yeah, [I'm] not going to go to the casino with the guys."
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