Carlos Sainz delivered a podium finish to Ferrari in Las Vegas, but the Spaniard was anything but happy with his team’s execution that also left his teammate Charles Leclerc comprehensively irritated.
Both drivers suffered from big tyre graining issues almost from the outset of the 50-lap race as they attempted to remain in the wake of the Mercedes of race leader George Russell.
The drop-off in pace encouraged Leclerc to cede his runner up spot to Sainz, but the latter eventully also found himself struggling, which led to the pair swapping their mediums for hards within the first 10 laps of the race.
But the second rotation brought about a confusing situation of Ferrari’s own making. Sainz pitted on lap 28 – one lap later than scheduled because his crews were not ready. Leclerc followed suit three laps later and emerged just ahead of his teammate, but on stone cold hard tyres.
Sainz was told not to attack Leclerc only to immediately overhaul the Monegasque at Turn 4, much to the latter’s surprise. Leclerc later vented his frustration in no uncertain terms over the radio on the cool-down lap.
Asked about his teammate’s grievances, Sainz made clear that he had complaints of his own to raise with the team.
"I think he grained the medium tyres and I managed to get ahead before the pitstop on mediums," said Sainz.
"Then I did grain my hards, he [Leclerc] was coming quick behind me, and me anticipating what it was going to be, a situation - because Lewis [Hamilton] was straight behind Charles at the time, and I was pretty sure the team was going to ask me to let Charles by, because he was quicker at the time, as I was on grained tyres.
"I asked the team two or three times to box me, to get me out of the way, and get me a new set of hards to make sure I wasn't losing a lot of race time by having to let Charles by and then having to fight Lewis at the same time. For some reason we didn't box.
"I ended up having to let Charles by a lap later, and losing a lot of race time. And by the time I was going to box, we didn't even box.
"So... I guess he's not happy but I'm also not happy by the way things were handled at the time. And yeah, I think no one's happy today in the team because we all expected a bit more.
"I am on the podium so at least I got that for the team, but at the same time I don't think we could've finished much better than P3 and P4 today."
Vasseur recognized that Leclerc might be frustrated after being assured that Sainz wouldn’t pressure him, only to be overtaken. But the Scuderia chief downplayed the situation.
"I think it's more the fact that the situation was really difficult for everybody,” he said. “We will discuss tonight, it won't be an issue.
"We struggled a lot in the first stint on the mediums, losing about two seconds per lap towards the end and again at the end of the second stint, the first one on the hards,” he added, reflecting on the race.
"Overall our pace on the Hards was decent, but we lost too much time in the early stages and generally our pace was a bit too inconsistent.
"At some point we have to score more points than everyone else. We cannot just settle for damage limitation if we want to keep the fight open."
Overall, Ferrari reduced its deficit to McLaren in the championship standings to 24 points wit two races to go.
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