Vasseur promises Ferrari will bounce back in Madrid after Monza nightmare

It goes without saying that the Italian Grand Prix weekend is the biggest of the year for Ferrari, and over the decades the Tifosi have grown used to experiencing a rollercoaster of highs and lows.

This year’s race promised much, with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton alongside each other on the second row.

However, they managed to trip over each other at the first chicane before Leclerc had a huge crash at Parabolica on the second lap. He escaped unhurt, but the team was left with a wrecked SF-26, and potentially some lost power unit elements.

After the red flag and restart, Hamilton could manage only P6, not the sort of outcome that anyone in the Maranello camp could be too happy about – especially Team Principal Fred Vasseur.

“Tomorrow morning back at the factory we will prepare Madrid, and we'll come to Madrid with all the energy that we need to do a good result,” he said after Sunday's race. “But it's true that Monza for us, even if I spend the week to say that it's a normal race, it's not, as you can imagine.

“And with all the Tifosi this weekend, we were expecting to give them something else as a big thanks for the support and the enthusiasm that they have. But be sure that we'll come back next week much stronger.”

The first corner clash put a renewed focus on the tricky subject of balancing the interests of Leclerc and Hamilton. The latter made it clear after the flag that he feels his World Championship bid needs more support, and that it’s time for rules of engagement to be applied.

Vasseur didn’t want to comment on the specifics of the first lap – he had not yet talked to both drivers – but he made an interesting point about prioritising a title contender.

“For sure, the outcome of Turn 1 and 2 is not good for the team,” said Vasseur. “Now to see if we have a team order or whatever, I think that the good comparison that I made was that last year Piastri was the leading McLaren at this stage of the season – and if McLaren put everything on Piastri, Max Verstappen would have been champion.

“But for sure, at one stage you have to take a decision. But I think it was too early to take a decision before Monza. Now we have time to discuss with the guys.”

While things went awry in the first couple of laps, with one car out and the other tumbling down the order, Vasseur acknowledged that it would still have been a difficult afternoon. That was evidenced by Hamilton’s struggles while battling other cars.

The team’s upgraded power unit was a useful boost, but straight-line performance was still not where it needed to be.

“There are a lot of ifs,” he said when asked what a clean race would have brought. “And honestly, I can't predict. I think race pace, we showed yesterday the race pace was probably okay-ish. Main issue was top speed and overtaking.

“It means that it was quite impossible for us to attack or to defend. Or when we are attacking someone, we are draining the battery, and next straight line we are losing the position. And it was more than the pace. I think we were a little bit in a corner with the strategy, honestly. We were just stuck with the top speed.

“I think we did a step, but clearly we knew before the weekend that the fight in the race will be critical. When we were putting a bit more energy in one corner, it was even bigger the gap in the next straightline, and it was quite impossible to manage.

“But honestly, this it's not news, and coming to Monza, we knew that it will be like this. Then the circumstances of the race didn't help for sure.”

In the end it comes down to power unit performance, and despite the latest ADUO upgrade, there is still much work to do.

“I don't want to give details,” said Vasseur. “But when you have a lack of pure power, then you start to play with deployment to try to compensate in one straight line, but if you deploy more somewhere, for sure you will deploy less somewhere else, and then you are going in the wrong spiral to try to play with this when you are fighting.

“Honestly, it's not about deployment. I think deployment it was okay-ish. Even McLaren they were playing a little bit Friday and Saturday morning. At the end, we are missing pure power.”

That won’t be so critical at next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, where the team will have an early chance to make amends for the Monza frustration.

“It's very early to think about Madrid, and to have expectations for Madrid. I have to digest the weekend, but for sure the layout of the track is probably fitting a bit more with what we have today, and we can expect a bit more next week. But first, let me let me digest this.”