Ferrari overestimated tire degradation

By “forgetting” both Mercedes de Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg at lights out, Sebastian Vettel seemed to have pulled off the perfect shot in the opening moments of the Canadian Grand Prix. The German driver quickly opened up a first gap at the start of the race, before being called back into the pits during the intervention of the virtual safety car, deployed to evacuate the car immobilized by Jenson Button.

A choice of a two-stop strategy which ultimately did not pay off. “We committed to this choice quite early and I think it was probably the right thing to do to get to the checkered flag as quickly as possible.

But clearly we lost time on track and we didn't expect Lewis' tires to last this long. I myself was surprised how long the super-soft lasted. The degradation may not have been as high as we expected. Perhaps this is where we lost the race. »

Despite this poor choice by Scuderia Ferrari, Sebastian Vettel wishes to retain the overall performance of Maranello, which notably brought a new turbo to Montreal, which seems to have given satisfaction in the Italian clan.

“I want to make one thing clear: I'm not a big fan of blaming someone or something. I think it was a good weekend for Ferrari. We had a difficult start to the season because we were never really able to demonstrate the real performance of the car.

It was maybe the first real good weekend if you include Saturday and Sunday. We didn't get the result I was hoping for, especially after the start... We had great pace, just look at the first laps of the race: I was widening the gap... maybe not so much on Lewis, but on all the cars behind. »

With this second place, Sebastian Vettel now has 78 points against 116 for championship leader Nico Rosberg.

Find the full report and analysis of the Canadian Grand Prix, produced by our special correspondents in Montreal, in issue 2067 of AUTOhebdo, available from 22 p.m. this evening in digital version, and from this Wednesday on newsstands.