Ferrari’s garage position “worked against us in qualifying” – Vasseur

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.

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“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.”

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