Ferrari boss not aligned with Hamilton and Verstappen on FIA delay

09:25, 28 Jul

bySandy van Wijngaarden

The FIA delayed the start of the Belgian Grand Prix for an hour and half. Max Verstappen would have liked the race to start at 15:00 local already, however, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur does understand race control's decision.

After the Belgian Grand Prix, Frederic Vasseur, team pricipal of Ferrari, discussed the situation among others with GPblog. He also explained that his verdict was not influenced by their setup choice, as he had one driver's car with lower (Leclerc) and one with higher (Hamilton) wings.

He explained that the FIA had made several attempts to improve driving in the rain.

“After ‘21, when we had the issue in Spa, that we did some tests the week after or at the end of this season in Fiorano to limit the spray, we put different appendix on the car, but at the end the spray is coming from the floor. It means that there is nothing that we can do or you have to stop massively the performance of the car if you want to put something there.”

When the Formula 1 cars drive in the rain, they cause a lot of spray. This significantly impairs the vision of the drivers behind, as can be clearly seen on the onboard cameras.

Max Verstappen in wet conditions - Red Bull Contentpool

“And again, it's not about, because I think for the fans it's quite difficult to understand that they can't drive. Limitation is not the grip, limitation is not the adherence, limitation is visibility. And I think it's good also to show sometimes the camera that they have on the helmet, because you can understand in this situation that they see absolutely nothing.”

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari driver, told the team at the start of the race that visibility was too poor. "At one stage that we were speaking with Charles, who changed something on the steering wheel and said guys that ‘I can't move the eyes in front of me’ because that remember what's happened to... I don't remember if it was behind Kimi or Hadjar, but in Silverstone they had a crash in the same situation, just because they didn't see each other.”

Vasseur respects the FIA's decision

“And I think this is the most dangerous,” the Frenchman stated. “Also because if there is a crash in front of you, you can't see the car stop on track.”

Whether the race could have started earlier, the team boss doesn't dare to say. “I had a couple of times the question after the race that do you think that we could have started the race a bit earlier or whatever. For sure. In terms of grip, for sure. In terms of visibility, I'm not sure.”

Vasseur mainly wanted to emphasise that this was a difficult decision for the FIA. “We can't blame them, because we would be collectively the first one to give them shit if something happened. And in this sense that we have to respect their decision, I can speak frankly because I have one car pushing on the high downforce, one car pushing on the low downforce. I was comfortable to respect their decision because they are taking a huge responsibility,” he concluded the Ferrari team boss.