Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said the location of their garage in the Interlagos pit lane made life more difficult for them in qualifying.
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr claimed second and eighth respectively in yesterday’s qualifying session. Sainz was later promoted a position when one of his rivals was penalised.However Vasseur believes the pair were compromised by not being among the first drivers to set their times in Q3. The session began as a storm was arriving and the rapidly cooling temperatures and shifting winds made conditions increasingly challenging.
“I was P8 on the queue and I qualified P8,” said Sainz. “P9 and P10 in the queue qualified behind me. So it was clear that the later you were going, the slower the track was and it was not ideal.”
Vasseur said the team found it difficult to get their cars to the pit lane exit before their rivals because their garage was situated so far away from it. Garage positions are assigned based on the team’s finishing position in the previous year’s championship, and as Ferrari finished second, all the teams besides last year’s champions Red Bull were closer to the pit exit than they were.
“The position of our garage in pit lane worked against us in Q3 as we found a whole queue of cars ahead of us and that made life more difficult for our drivers when it came to managing tyre temperature,” said Vasseur.
Leclerc asked his team if they could release him from his garage early to secure a place near the front of the queue. He was the sixth driver to leave the pits, followed by Lando Norris, Sainz, Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“Everyone only got one run in, but Charles did very well to manage his car and secure a front row start,” said Vasseur. “The fact he did not think he’d done a good lap as he crossed the finish line says a lot about how difficult it was to drive in these conditions.”
Interlagos garage positions
Pit entrance
Red Bull
Ferrari
Mercedes
Alpine
McLaren
Alfa Romeo
Aston Martin
Haas
AlphaTauri
Williams
Pit exit
Order drivers arrived on track at start of Q3
1. Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin
2. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin
3. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes
4. Max Verstappen, Red Bull
5. George Russell, Mercedes
6. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
7. Lando Norris, McLaren
8. Carlos Sainz Jnr, Ferrari
9. Oscar Piastri, McLaren
10. Sergio Perez, Red Bull
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
2023 Brazilian Grand Prix
- Perez’s missed “open goal” in Miami was turning point in title fight – Horner
- F1 drivers insist new rules to prevent impeding in qualifying don’t work
- McLaren surprised by margin over rivals at track Norris thought would be “tough”
- “Follow Fernando’s line” – How Red Bull tried everything to get Perez past Alonso
- Mercedes’ Brazilian GP set-up was “conservative” after US GP disqualification
Fer no.65 (@fer-no65)
4th November 2023, 7:23
Oh yeah? And how did Max arrive before them while being further away to the pit exit?
What a lame excuse…
George.be
4th November 2023, 9:51
I think Max planned to be completely in front but 3 others were positioned “better”. After Max went out, all others except 2 cars (Sergio and Oscar) dove out of the box, all near at the same time.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
4th November 2023, 10:48
So Ferrari weren’t compromised by their garage box position, but by their own choice to come out of the box too late.
George.be
4th November 2023, 15:56
Correct to a certain degree. It’s the same story as with an undercut during the race: The first one to move decides, the rest respond. Only here it isn’t track position but pitlane position that decides the outcome, and the track position should be “on merit” while the box position isn’t (in fact it is slightly the opposite)
MichaelN
4th November 2023, 11:01
Aston Martin had a real advantage here, but as the order shows the difference between the guys from Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari was more down to how quick they were to leave. Even if Ferrari was unlikely to ever be first out of the pitlane, they could have done better than Verstappen simply by leaving the pitbox at the same time and being closer to the exit than he was.
Jere (@jerejj)
4th November 2023, 12:03
Then start finishing lowly in the WCC so that you get to be closer to pit exit on most circuits.
cdfemke (@cdfemke)
4th November 2023, 14:31
Garage allocation is on prder pf the previous championship. So no need to complain about it now, you cant choose, you can only tey and finish higher in the constructors.