“It's difficult to say when you're finishing 9 and 10 that we did a good job”: Ferrari team principal on the British F1 GP

Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur was clearly not satisfied with the team's performance at the 2023 F1 British GP. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz somehow managed to finish ninth and 10th, respectively, which was clearly quite low for the Italian team's lofty standards.

Speaking about the race to Motorsports.com, Vasseur initially explained how he was not very satisfied with P4 and P5 in the qualifying sessions. Hence, it was obvious that he was dejected after the race results.

The Frenchman stated how the Ferrari would look throughout the entire weekend and also gauged how the team was unable to clock in enough laps during the Friday practice sessions, especially because Charles Leclerc's SF-23 had an electrical issue.

"Starting from P4, P5 we had the feeling after the quali that we could have done a much better job than this, We can't be happy finishing P9, P10. But now we need to have a deep look on the weekend, not just on the race. I think we didn't do the long stint on Friday, only the soft compound, and Charles was stuck in the garage," Vasseur said.

Vasseur further stated how Ferrari was a bit too scared about tire degradation, due to which the team was extra careful with its tires, even though the degradation at Silverstone was not too high.

"And we were a bit scared with the deg. Probably somewhere in our mind we had the first races of the season, where today [Sunday] we were far too conservative on the tyre management, and we didn't push enough," Vasseur aded.

Frederic Vasseur also mentioned the safety car, which was clearly not in Ferrari's hands but cost the team quite a lot during the British GP.

“Then we were a bit unlucky with the safety car. This is not in our hands, and we don't have to think about this, we have to think about what we can manage. And honestly, I think that we could have pushed much more. It's difficult to say when you're finishing nine and 10 that we did a good job,” he concluded.

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Carlos Sainz on why Ferrari decided not to pit him under the safety car at the 2023 F1 British GP

Carlos Sainz was somewhat of a sitting duck after the safety car restart at the 2023 F1 British GP. This was because he did not pit under the safety car and was running on used and hard tires.

After the race, he spoke to Dan and explained why Ferrari did not decide to pit him.

"I was going very fast on the hards, and then a safety car came out which conditioned my race. Without the safety car, perhaps I would’ve been able to overtake Charles Leclerc because I was going much faster, but it is what it is," he said.

"If I had pit during the safety car for softs, I would have come out 10th and I would’ve had to those overtake cars on the same tires. It would have been very difficult to pass those cars," Sainz added.

Carlos Sainz was overtaken by Sergio Perez, Alex Albon, and his Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc, within a couple of corners in a single lap. The Spaniard eventually finished 10th in the British GP.