Ferrari chief strategist Iñache Rueda has described how Ferrari tried to outsmart rivals Red Bull Racing during a race in Austria, and their plan worked.
In the first stint of the race, Charles Leclerc put a lot of pressure on Verstappen, forcing Max to attack constantly, leading to increased rear tire wear on the RB18. As a result, the Red Bull Racing driver went to the pits earlier than planned, while Leclerc stayed on track and extended the first stint, giving him an advantage in the race. According to Rueda, this is what Ferrari originally intended.
“Before Sunday’s race, we knew that one of the biggest problems would be to get the tire wear under control,” said Iñache Rueda. “We knew that Soft tires were too soft to race, so we chose between Hard and Medium compounds. We thought there would be two or three pit stops in the race.
On Sunday, our main goal was to destabilize Verstappen. Our drivers started second and third and wanted to pressure Max to force him into a very early pit stop, which was not optimal for a two-stop strategy.
Charles applied enough pressure and eventually overtook Verstappen. Carlos also prepared to overtake, forcing Max to stop very early in the pits on lap 13. For optimal two-stop strategy, it was very early, so we met our goals.
Unfortunately, closer to the finish, Carlos’s car suffered an engine failure just as he was about to attack Verstappen. On the track, the virtual safety car mode was on – we had to decide what to do with Charles. Stay on the track on practically new hard tires or switch to new medium tires.
The fact that Max’s car was already quite worn out convinced us to switch to Medium as we were sure Verstappen would do the same. In the race, our mechanics had five very good pit stops, and the last one was no exception – under three seconds.
Twelve laps to go in Charles’ car had a small problem with the accelerator. Charles managed to cope and make it to the finish line, taking a stunning win.
There are still two races to go before the summer break. We are motivated to achieve the best possible results.”
Source: F1 News
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