At the 2020 Spanish GP, Sebastian Vettel brought his SF100 home in 7th place, after a bold one-stop strategy. Put that way, it seems not that impressive, although it very much is. On a track as notoriously difficult to overtake on as the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, qualifies in 11th place was almost a guarantee of no point. Yet, gaining four places, with what wasn't the optimum tyre strategy, was nothing close than a miracle.

During the race however, the German has had an interesting exchange of words with his race engineer, on whether or not he could make his tyres last to the end of the race. It was the second race in a row there had been debate between Vettel and his race engineer over the strategy, having said the pit calls “didn’t make any sense” after the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone. 

Debriefing the spanish GP, Vettel said he did not think there needed to be any review of Ferrari’s approach to its strategy planning and communication:

“I think we are obviously talking about it, and we had a brief chat. I think there are things we can always do better. If you play Monday engineering, it’s very easy to know a lot of things that you could have done or should have done.

“But I think the important thing is that we agreed to take that risk, and obviously it did pay off. From where we were, I don’t think we had much to lose.

“It’s normal that you communicate. I think it’s very weird for you to judge because [with] whoever is selecting which radio transmissions to broadcast and which not, it’s very difficult for you to know what is being said and get the full picture.

“It was nothing outstanding today. Obviously it’s a lot about managing tyres here, and in the end we did the decision and we stuck to it, so it’s fine.”

Ferrari F1 boss Mattia Binotto said the exchanges back and forth with Vettel should not be considered as a misunderstanding, but proof the team was happy to question varying strategies.

“Something on which we decide together with [the drivers is] we should be as open as we can, and sometimes questioning doesn’t mean that it is a misunderstanding,” Binotto said.

“The more that we question ourselves by communicating, it is important to finally get the right choice."

“If you look at the last few races, we certainly made the right choice, sometimes luckily" as Seb said.

“This week, we came to the choice because we are communicating. It is our decision, so to be open on the radio, in the midfield, sometimes is difficult. But at least by questioning, we are able to make the proper decision."

However, anyone witnessing these scenes has to wonder if Vettel backing Ferrari is his way to be a team player,  and Binotto soothing speech an attempt to put to bed the rumors of the team sabotaging Vettel last stint at Ferrari.