19/05/2024
NEWS STORY
Scuderia Ferrari HP came away from the Gran Premio del Made in Italy e dell'Emilia-Romagna with a third place for Charles Leclerc - a seventh podium in as many races for the team this season - and a fifth for Carlos Sainz.
There were positives to take away from the event over and above the race result itself because over 63 laps of Imola, all the hard work in Maranello to fine tune the updates package on the SF-24 was clear to see. It worked as expected and the whole team put in a lot of effort to get everything out of the car. This intense work on all fronts meant the drivers were even more competitive in the race, as can be seen from the gap between Leclerc and the race winner Max Verstappen and gives the team hope for the rest of the season. With such small gaps, the team now has to improve its qualifying performance because it was clear today that grid position had a profound effect on the final result. And that will be even more the case next week in Monaco.
Almost predictably, the top three finished in the order in which they started. When the lights went out, Verstappen managed to fend off Lando Norris, Charles, Carlos and Oscar Piastri. The order remained unchanged up to the first run of pit stops, which Piastri initiated on lap 24. Carlos stayed out deciding it would be difficult to defend from the undercut from the Australian and that the McLaren driver would have to deal with traffic. Sainz pitted on lap 27 when his Mediums started to go off and he had to defend from the Mercedes duo, but he was unable to stay ahead of the McLaren and had to settle for fifth. The gaps between the first three were very small throughout the second part of the race. Charles managed to close on Norris at the start of his stint on the Hard, but with such small differences between car performance at Imola, getting past was impossible. The Monegasque could match Verstappen's pace and so the gap to the Dutchman remained practically the same as it was at the pit stops and then, towards the end, Norris pushed on more as he tried to fight for the win. Charles finished just under eight seconds behind the winner, while Carlos had a solitary time of it in the second part, able to match Piastri's pace on the Hard, but not to pass him and so he had to settle for fifth.
Charles' third place brought him enough points to get ahead of Sergio Perez to go second in the standings, behind the leader Verstappen. Scuderia Ferrari HP also confirmed its second place in pursuit of Red Bull in the Constructors.' In five days' time, the action resumes in Monaco for Charles Leclerc's home race, where the small matter of winning around the streets of Monte Carlo is something he is keen to deal with as soon as possible.
Charles Leclerc: Today's race went well and we got even closer to our rivals. If we had qualified higher up, we could have presented our fans with an even better result. After changing on to the Hard tyres I had great pace and managed to make up ground on Lando (Norris) and Max (Verstappen,) but in the end the McLaren was quicker than us, although not by much.
Overall, there are plenty of positives to take away from this race: the upgrades worked as expected and we are more competitive. We must continue to work to close the gap, which although small, still separates us from the race winner.
Obviously, we dedicate this result and our performance to the tifosi who are the best fans in the world and they always support us come what may. I'm sure we'll soon be able to pay them back with a win.
Carlos Sainz: I cannot be happy after what was a tough race for me. I need to review it with the team to understand why I've not been comfortable with the car both in qualifying and today pace-wise.
We will regroup tomorrow to start preparing for Monaco and hopefully we can get a better result there. The fight at the top is starting to get tight and we need to continue pushing.
Fred Vasseur: First of all I would like to thank all the tifosi as it was very special to see them under the podium after the race. They brought us a lot of energy this week. Overall, it was a good weekend beyond the performance on track. Today we brought home the best result we could, as it is very difficult to overtake here. When we were pushing we were able to close the gap, but we had to be careful about overheating the tyres and we did not have enough pace difference to overtake.
Unfortunately, the outcome of the Grand Prix was very much connected to yesterday's qualifying and we need to do a better job in the next races as we can now see that our competitiveness in the race itself has really improved. I think today's race was also a very good advert for Formula 1 as we saw three teams in seven seconds after more than 60 laps, which means the gaps are less than one tenth per lap.
We are definitely on the pace now and we can fight for the top spot, even if we still need to make a small step forward.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Imola here.