In an interview with the team, Frédéric Vasseur, the owner of Ferrari, returned to the strange start of the Scuderia season, whose two cars were disqualified last weekend at the China Grand Prix. That of Lewis Hamilton (which had won the sprint on Saturday) for too pronounced wear on the skate on the floor (0.5 mm under the limit) and that of Charles Leclerc because of a lower weight of at least 800 kg fixed by the regulations of F 1. Small details that make a big difference and lose the 5th and 6th places…
“You have to make the share of things between disqualification because you take risks and disqualification because someone cheats. The purpose of the game in F 1 is to go on the edge of all the parameters, everywhere, explains the French boss. To arrive at the last gram of the weight, to arrive at the last tenth of a millimeter of the skate, to arrive at the last millimeter of deformation of the fins. So it is sure that the more pressure you are, the more intense the fight, the more we need to get closer to these limits, the more risks we take. »»
It goes or it breaks and it didn’t happen. And speaking of wear, the tricolor manager refutes any drop in Hamilton diet. The 40 -year -old septuple world champion has not been spared by critics since his arrival in Maranello, the fief of the Italian stable.
“Thinking that Lewis Hamilton is worn, outdated is tough. And in addition it is false, loose Vasseur. Look at his last race last year (at Mercedes). He leaves 16th and finished 4th by going beyond his teammate (Russell) … We all change in twenty years but the common characteristic between the Lewis of twenty years ago and that of today is that he is archi-e-job. It is his trademark and he has kept it (…) Lewis can extract the maximum of all the people around him because he is demanding with himself and it goes very well when he is demanding with others. This allows us to change vision. »»
The presence and influence of the British legend necessarily shade his Monegasque teammate Charles Leclerc. “It is less in the light, it’s true,” says Vasseur. But it makes him more time for him, to do other things, to be with his engineers. There is good in there. There could be a little frustration, jealousy, but I think that Charles is intelligent, that he understands the situation better and that he sees above all the positive side of all this … “