Ferrari: Qatar GP struggles linked to "balloon" F1 tyre pressures

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said the Scuderia failed to adapt to the mandated tyre pressures at the Qatar Grand Prix, leading to its worst Formula 1 performance of the year.

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton qualified ninth and 18th for the sprint, 10th and 18th for the grand prix, and scored a meagre four points over the weekend – their worst haul this season apart from their double retirement at the Dutch GP.

This result has consigned Ferrari to fourth position in the constructors’ championship, three grands prix on from the Scuderia occupying the runner-up spot after Mexico.

There were concerns over tyre wear at the Losail track, which meant that Pirelli adapted its mandated tyre pressures while cars were banned from executing stints longer than 25 laps in the race; it sounds like that didn’t help Ferrari.

“As a team we have to try to understand what we did wrong this weekend,” Vasseur said on Sunday night. “From my understanding so far it's linked to the tyre pressure, the prescription, that we were a bit like on a balloon all weekend and we struggled to deal with, but it's the same for everybody, it means that we did a worse job than the others.”

Asked if he expected performance to become so bad after stopping the SF-25’s development in April, the Frenchman replied: “Honestly not, but at the end of the day, we don't have to mix everything, because in Austin we were on the podium. It means that it's not just about development. The others, they didn't develop between Austin and today.

Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari

Photo by: Andrej Isakovic / AFP via Getty Images

“I think that this weekend we struggled a lot with the set-up, and [it's] probably also linked to the prescription of the tyre pressure. We struggled from lap one to the last lap of the race. It was probably a bit better today, but marginally. But it's part of the explanation. But the main part of the situation of this weekend is linked to the set-up from lap one. We were in a tough situation.”

This added to a power steering issue that hindered Ferrari’s chances to find the right set-up – which was compounded by the sprint weekend format, with just one practice session.

“We made big changes,” Vasseur insisted. “I think it was OK-ish perhaps today, but we went too far away when the others are fine-tuning – if you start miles away, you are dead.

“And on top [of that], today, if you do a step back by two tenths, you are losing 10 positions – I think it was Q1 yesterday when you had two tenths and a half between P5 and P16,” he added very accurately – the gap was 0.241s.

“That means that if you are out of the window, for sure you lose tons of positions. And on a track like this where you have zero deg, not easy to overtake with the layout of the track, and on top you impose the two stops, [forget about coming] back.”