Vasseur offers explanation for Ferrari’s disastrous qualifying result at Imola

On the back of Ferrari’s worst ever qualifying result at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, the Scuderia’s team boss Fred Vasseur has offered an explanation for the disastrous showing from the Maranello-based outfit,

Although Ferrari looked fairly competitive in the third and final practice at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the Scuderia recorded its worst ever qualifying result at Imola.

Both drivers made it through the first part using just one set of Soft tyres, although Leclerc and Hamilton had fitted a second set of the same compound, planning to go quicker.

However, there was no need for a further attempt, as the session was red-flagged following Franco Colapinto’s crash. The Ferraris kept those tyres for the start of Q2 with the Monegasque posting a 1m15.604s and Lewis a 1m15.765s.

They then pitted for new softs but neither of them was able to improve and towards the end, which meant that they were unable to get to Q3, with the 11th and 12th fastest times.

With Ferrari having endured the same difficulties with switching on the new tyres, the Scuderia’s team boss Fred Vasseur has urged his outfit to improve the situation.

“Today, thousands of tifosi were here to support us and we did not get the job done so we cannot be satisfied with our result. It was a very tough day for us and, as was the case in Miami, we were not able to improve our times on the new tyres, doing our fastest lap (in Q2) with the first set from Q1.

“The tyre situation was strange for everyone today, but it seemed to affect us more than the others and I also think we didn’t execute the session as well as we could have done.

As for tomorrow’s Imola race, Vasseur insisted that while the SF25 might display a better race performance, the lack of overtaking opportunities could deprive Hamilton and Leclerc of any chance of moving up the grid.

“Tomorrow, it will be up to us to try and see what we can do. Even if we had good race pace on Friday, here is not the easiest place to overtake so it will be a challenging afternoon and we will probably have to take some risks, specifically in terms of the strategy. We will focus on that now and try and do our best for the tifosi tomorrow.”