Fred Vasseur says everything went wrong for Ferrari at the Canadian Grand Prix but he hopes the team’s issues for the season were all faced over one weekend.
Both Ferrari drivers failed to advance out of Q2 on Saturday in Montreal, leaving them needing to fight back in the race as wet weather hit on Sunday. Early in the grand prix, though, Charles Leclerc suffered a power unit issue that eventually forced his retirement, while Carlos Sainz spun at Turn 6 later on and collided with Alex Albon to bring his own race to an end, capping a frustrating weekend for the Ferrari team principal.
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“It’s a long list,” Vasseur said. “On one side of the garage, with Charles, not on lap one but on lap two, we lost part of the power. We were expecting a red flag to do a power cycle and to try and come back but the red flag never happened. We had a red flag in Monaco but not in Montreal. We had to pit and lost almost a lap but it was done.
“On Carlos’ side, he was not in a good position at Turn 2 and then at one stage, I don’t remember exactly when because the list is quite long, but he had contact with [Valtteri] Bottas and damaged the front wing and the floor.
“The pace was strong on Friday. Conditions were tricky [in qualifying] and a couple of cars had the same issue – I won’t go deep into details – but we were quite confident for the pace [in the race]. The issues in the beginning… everything went wrong and I hope we have put all the s****y parts of the season on the same weekend.”
Although Vasseur felt issues piled up on Ferrari in Montreal, he says it’s important the team doesn’t let that impact the way it goes about its work during testing times.
“It was not the best one,” he said. “The most difficult? I don’t know, but it was not the best one. But sometimes you get the feeling everything is going wrong and going against you, but we don’t change the approach.
“We are working as a team with the drivers in the good and bad moments and we will keep the same approach for next weekend and continue together. I’m not [bothered] at all by this kind of weekend, it is what it is.”