Despite having a fantastic start and taking the lead from Mercedes in the first corner, Sebastian Vettel was unable to achieve victory for Ferrari. The major factor in Ferrari’s inability to win in Canada was their pit strategy, but Vettel insists that there is no reason to criticize the team for their strategy.
Ferrari opted to go for a two-stop pit strategy, while their rivals opted for a single pit stop strategy. Both Vettel’s and Kimi Räikkönen’s strategy were the same. Both drivers stopped on lap 11 while the virtual safety car was deployed to switch from the ultrasoft tyres to the supersoft tyres, instead for the required soft tyre. The decision to pit during the virtual safety car backfired for Ferrari, as it was removed while they were still in the pits. The virtual safety car was removed much earlier than the team had anticipated. The team then pitted their drivers on laps 33 and 37 to switch the soft tyres, with Räikkönen being the first driver of the pair to pit.
On the Mercedes pit wall, the team opted to go for only a single pit stop from the ultrasoft tyre to the required soft compound tyre. This was done around lap 20 and was their only planned pit stop. Unfortunately, Nico Rosberg needed to make a second pit stop to get a set of tyres due to a slow puncture around lap 51.
Sebastian Vettel believes that the team has the best strategists and that there is no reason to criticize their choice in strategy:
“Today it was a great race, I enjoyed every single lap and it’s just a shame that the trophy is not as big as it could have been. There’s no reason to give the team any criticism for the strategy: when I pitted for the first time we thought it would be quicker, so I was happy to come in. We expected obviously the tires to last a little bit less, but they didn’t. The good news is the car is working, we had a normal Saturday, which allowed us to have a great race. I had a perfect start, I reacted well to the light going off, I did not look at the others and only focused on myself and was able to fly past and by turn 1 it was done. I was very happy to be in the lead and push properly and then probably in the last corner I pushed a bit too much. Of course I would have loved to hit more than 1 or 2 tenths per lap, maybe 3, maybe 7 tenths for lap, but I think it was a great race and you should not get overexcited with strategy. In my point of view, I know that we have the best people in terms of strategy.”
Elsewhere in the pit lane, most of the other teams also opted for a two-stop strategy, although Rio Haryanto and Sergio Pérez were the only two drivers to venture out on the supersoft tyres. Fernando Alonso was the only other driver to run the one-stop strategy that Mercedes decided to run. Even Lewis Hamilton has revealed during post-race interviews that the team had apparently originally planned to do a two-stop strategy, until they switched the drivers to a “Plan B”.
The virtual safety car also had a big impact on Ferrari’s pit stop, as their gamble to pit during that period could have saved them valuable time in the pits. “As far as race strategies are concerned, we tried to take advantage of the Virtual Safety car period, which lasted way less than expected,” explained Maurizio Arrivabene, the Ferrari team principal. “It could have proved a very good move, taking into account the predicted rate of degradation on the Ultrasoft tires: but this degradation did not materialize in the end.”
As the halfway point of the season rapidly approaches, Ferrari is still winless in 2016 and will be looking for a victory soon. The Ferrari has performed great at street circuits, so they will be looking to exploit that performance at next week’s European Grand Prix in Azerbaijan.
Weekend Summary: 2016 Canadian Grand Prix
2016 Canadian Grand Prix Predictions
