(Motorsport-Total.com) – Ferrari had hoped for more from qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton starts on Sunday from fifth place, Charles Leclerc from sixth. Hamilton was 0.331 seconds short of pole position, Leclerc was 0.395 seconds behind.
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For the Scuderia, the result is especially disappointing because the race pace in the sprint in the morning looked significantly stronger. In addition, Ferrari worked on the setup after the sprint – successfully, as Hamilton emphasizes. “I was much, much happier with the car,” explains the seven-time world champion.
“The car was much better, I am much happier with it and looking forward to tomorrow.” But in qualifying, Ferrari again lagged behind the competition. Hamilton sees the biggest problem with the tires. Ferrari had difficulty getting the tires up to temperature immediately. Especially in the first sector, this led to a lack of confidence.
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“The tires were the biggest culprit today,” says Hamilton. “They are simply not quite there in the first sector. Then they get better over the course of the lap.” For Hamilton, this meant a difficult balancing act: he actually wanted to start the fast lap as quickly as possible, but the tires needed more preparation.
“You do an outlap and a preparation lap and the tires are still not ready in turn one. That’s crazy.” It was exactly there that Hamilton, according to his own assessment, lost the crucial confidence. “You just don’t have the confidence to attack turn one fully. I think that was the biggest difference today.”
Team principal Frederic Vasseur sees the situation similarly but warns against drawing a fundamental weakness from the result. The gaps are extremely tight. “We have six cars today within one or two tenths,” explains Vasseur. “Yesterday there were four cars within less than a tenth.”
In this tight field, you can lose or gain several positions from one session to the next.
Leclerc: “No potential for pole”
Charles Leclerc was also not satisfied with sixth place. However, the Monegasque does not believe that an earlier last attempt would have decisively changed the starting position. “I don’t think the conditions played a role in that,” says Leclerc.
Instead, Ferrari experimented too much with the power unit settings during qualifying. “We changed the power strategies a bit too much in qualifying,” he explains. “As a result, we lost some performance.”
A pole position was not realistic for Ferrari anyway. “There was never any potential for pole in qualifying.” Particularly interesting: Leclerc also sees a fundamental pattern. Ferrari is often stronger in the race than in qualifying this year.
“There is definitely a tendency that we are faster in the race than in qualifying,” he says. “In qualifying, we usually have a bit more problems.” For Zandvoort, however, this is a disadvantage. Because the sprint already showed how difficult overtaking maneuvers are on the Dutch track.
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Hope for race pace
Despite the disappointing starting positions, Ferrari goes into the race with confidence. The pace over longer distances was strong according to Vasseur. “The race pace was good,” says the Ferrari team principal. “We were also able to overtake this morning. I think the pace was at least good.”
Hamilton also expects Ferrari to be more competitive in the race. “I think our race pace was better today,” he says. “The car feels much better. I think tomorrow will be better.”
For Ferrari, however, the strategy will be crucial. Especially because overtaking in Zandvoort is difficult, different tire strategies could make the difference. Leclerc therefore expects a difficult race from sixth place but sees possibilities.
“Realistically, it will be very difficult to overtake on track,” he says. “But we will do our best.” The hope rests on the tires. In the sprint, Ferrari deliberately took a different approach with Leclerc and let the Monegasque start on soft tires, while most competitors chose mediums.
Vasseur considers the experiment a success. “It was a good test and also a good comparison between the two cars with two different compounds,” he explains. Leclerc was even able to overtake Lando Norris in the end. This experience could be important for the race.
Ferrari relies on strategy
Leclerc expects a tactically influenced decision about the tires. “Most teams kept two sets of hard tires – for one reason,” he says. “I think most teams believe they are a very good race tire.”
Therefore, Ferrari will probably first observe how the first stint develops on the chosen softer tire before making the final decision. “You have to do the first stint and see how the softer compound behaves, whether medium or soft, and then make a decision from there.”
Vasseur also remains optimistic. The new floor development that Ferrari brought this weekend is working as expected. “It is working according to plan,” he says. Ferrari has had good experiences with the upgrades since the start of the season.
However, big leaps are not to be expected. “We now bring upgrades at every race, but no big ones. We do not expect to find five tenths per race.”
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