Ferrari explains decision not to pit drivers under late SC

Ferrari believes it did not miss a golden opportunity to turn the Miami GP on its head by not pitting its drivers under the race's late Safety Car.

The collision between Pierre Gasly and Lando Norris that occurred 18 laps from the end of Sunday's race initially triggered a Virtual SC.

But when race control switched to a full SC, that appeared as a big break for Ferrari whose drivers could have enjoyed a free pitstop as leader Max Verstappen had already passed the pitlane entry.

But Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both ignored the opportunity, a decision that came as a big relief for Red Bull team boss Christian Horner.

"Ferrari let us off the hook slightly when it went from a virtual safety car to a full safety car," said Horner after the race.

"Max had already passed the pit entry, whereas Ferrari would have had a free stop. They didn't take it with either of their cars.

"We're grateful for that, because I think if they did put soft tyres on, that would have been a P3 today."

However, what Horner did not know was that Ferrari's inventory of new tyres was severely depleted when the SC was called out on the track.

Neither Leclerc nor Sainz had new sets of mediums of softs at their disposal. Ferrari subsequently opted to keep its drivers on their hard compound rubber rather than switch to a fresh set of hards.

"We believed that in terms of warm-up, a used tyre would have been stronger than a new one," explained Scuderia boss Mattia Binotto.

"We would have suffered more warm up issues with a new hard, which were the ones that we had available in the garage.

• Read also: F1i's Driver Ratings for the 2022 Miami GP

"So we decided to stay out because we believed that was the best chance for us to have a good warm up and attack in the first laps, which is what happened.

"I think that the best opportunity for Charles had been just on the very first lap after the safety car, and certainly he was close at that stage. And for Carlos as well, [it helped] to try to defend on Checo with the new medium."

Sainz agreed that remaining on his trusty hard tyres provided him with the best chance of keeping at bay the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez.

"I think it was the right call because in the end we managed to keep him behind," said the Spaniard.

"But it was tight. He had all everything, all the cards to actually pass me. I'm a bit surprised that we stayed ahead because it was a tight, tight battle."

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