Ferrari’s sporting director and head of race strategy Inaki Rueda analyses in detail what were the mistakes that compromised the Monaco GP for the two Cavallino’s drivers.

The team's strategist confirms two miscalculations that cost Leclerc dearly and an unfortunate circumstance that affected Sainz's race. Starting on pole, the Monegasque finished his race in fourth place, while Sainz kept his second position even though, Rueda admits, he could have won the race.

“With Carlos we had a very good race. He started P2 and after the first round of stops he found himself leading the race. Although our initial plan was to try and cover Perez, we had the peace of mind to realise it was not going to work. And at the last second we told Carlos to stay out and he duly did so.

"Furthermore, when the time was right we judged that the track could be quickest on dry tyres and Carlos was the first car on the lead path to stop for dry. This gave him a definitive advantage. Unfortunately, he came out behind Latifi and this cost him over three seconds. Head he not been blocked by Latifi, we are quite confident he would have won the race.”

Regarding Leclerc, Rueda explains that the first mistake of the team that compromised his race was to underestimate the gap with Perez. After realising that with Sainz they couldn't cover the Red Bull driver, they assessed that the gap with Leclerc was enough to do it. They were wrong.

“At the start of lap 18 Charles had over ten seconds advantage on Perez and we thought this advantage would shrink because Perez on Intermediate tyres was much faster than Charles on the Extremes. We had looked at other people, we had the live data from the cars and we thought that this gap would shrink from around ten seconds to maybe five, four, three seconds at the worst.

"As we were coming we saw the ten seconds gap shrinking: seven, six, five, four. As Charles was coming through the Swimming Pool, the last timing reference we had indicated that he would come out one second ahead of Perez. What we did not expect was Perez to go nine seconds faster overall in that lap. Because of this we lost the race with Charles.”

The second mistake with the Monegasque driver was again a gap assessment error. The intent of the team was to do a double pit stop to put on the dry tyres on both cars. While Sainz would keep the first position, Leclerc would enter the pit to try an undercut on Perez, leading to finish the race P1 and P2.

“As we were coming in, we were looking at our tools and our gaps. The gap between our cars was 5 seconds. It was time for a “doppio”, a double pit stop. A comfortable “doppio” is done with 6 seconds in between the car’s but we thought 5 and a half seconds might be enough.

"As the cars got closer and closer to pit entry the gap was narrowed and in the pit entry the gap was only 3 and a half seconds. We made a last second attempt to try and tell Charles to stay out but it was too late. He had already veered into the pit lane. In this “doppio” Charles lost two seconds.”

Two seconds that, explains the strategist, were crucial: “This is what allowed Verstappen to come out ahead of Charles a lap later.”

Rueda admits that expectations for this weekend were very high, the team expected to bring a competitive car to the track and this was actually confirmed on Saturday in qualifying.

“A front row lock-out in Monte Carlo, something we’re very proud of, something that is very difficult to obtain.” 

However, from the analysis of the race, it is clear that for the team there is still a lot to work on and to do so it is important to learn from this experience, focusing on the positive aspects but also on the negative ones.

“We come back to the factory, we analyse what we did right, what we did wrong, we update our tools, our procedures and we make sure we come back stronger from this experience.”