Vasseur: Ferrari’s Austrian GP pain was pace-driven, not strategy-led

Ferrari left searching for answers after Austria

Fred Vasseur insisted Ferrari’s difficult Austrian Grand Prix was rooted in a lack of outright pace rather than a flawed strategic call, even as he admitted the team took strategic risks in an attempt to offset its performance deficit.

The race told a harsher story. In hot conditions, both Ferrari drivers struggled with tyre degradation and were moved onto three-stop strategies. Hamilton finished fifth, while Leclerc came home eighth, leaving Vasseur to frame the result as a consequence of performance limitations rather than pit-wall misjudgement.

Vasseur points to Mercedes and Verstappen gap

Asked by F1 TV about the extra pit stops and how the race unfolded, Vasseur was clear that strategy was not where Ferrari’s afternoon unravelled.

“Oh, the strategy is not the issue, I think the issue is that we didn’t have the pace of the Mercedes and [Max] Verstappen,” he said. “We tried to compensate taking risks on the strategy, but it was not a good fight. I think it was more a matter of pace, and we paid also [the price for] the poor Friday we had.”

Vasseur added that Ferrari’s relative picture was not uniform across the field. Against McLaren, he felt the team was in range; against Mercedes and Verstappen, the task was considerably harder.

“I think compared to McLaren we are there, compared to Mercedes and Max it was more difficult,” he explained. “We overpushed probably the first couple of laps to stay with them, and we destroyed a bit everything.”

Leclerc confidence not the concern

Leclerc’s eighth place added to a difficult recent spell after DNFs in Monaco and Barcelona, but Vasseur rejected the idea that the Monegasque’s underlying pace or confidence was the issue in Spielberg.

“He was yesterday on the first row, which means that the confidence was there, and was there today,” Vasseur said. “It’s more a matter of overheating and destroying everything, it’s nothing to do with [his] pace.”

With the British Grand Prix approaching, Vasseur said Ferrari would carry the lessons forward quickly. In a separate Ferrari statement, he admitted the team may have become too focused on Mercedes and pushed too hard early with both cars before reacting aggressively on strategy.

“We will learn from this, refocus on ourselves and immediately turn our attention to the British Grand Prix next week,” he said.