Ferrari's Silverstone strategy call that cost Charles Leclerc

Silverstone marked the second time this season that Ferrari was involved in a controversial strategy call. Unlike at Monaco, it didn’t cost the team a victory, as Carlos Sainz took his maiden win, but it came at the expense of erstwhile leader Charles Leclerc.

The safety car 14 laps from the end came as the Ferraris were running 1-2 (Leclerc ahead of Sainz) but being hunted down by the newer-tyred Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. Leclerc was just rounding Stowe corner as the safety car was thrown.

In this situation the leader is always at the mercy of those who can react to whatever he does. But it seemed obvious that if Leclerc remained out on old hard tyres he’d be extremely vulnerable on the restart to cars behind – principally Hamilton and the Red Bull of Sergio Pérez – which would surely stop for new soft tyres.

The fear at Ferrari if Leclerc came in was that Hamilton would stay out. On (hard) tyres that were only four laps old at the time of the safety car, his rubber would be 14 laps newer than that of Sainz, if the latter had been left out, leading. Leclerc would have rejoined third but on new rubber and hindsight says that should comfortably have allowed him to pass Hamilton regardless of whether the latter passed Sainz. But Ferrari misjudged the tyre performance, much like at Monaco.

With only a few seconds in which to make a decision, Ferrari’s way of playing this was to instruct Leclerc to stay out but Sainz to pit for the softs. In this way, the pitwall reasoned, they could use Sainz to hold off the challengers as Leclerc escaped to bring his tyres back up to temperature.

Leclerc had his doubts upon being told the situation, with the new soft-tyred Sainz, Hamilton and Pérez lined up behind him. “What is the tyre difference?” he asked, getting straight to the crucial question. “Let me get back to you,” replied his race engineer Xavier Marcos Padros, then: “We believe the soft will be 0.5sec quicker initially but will then deg quickly.”

That was not an accurate picture. The difference was well over 1sec – and furthermore, at this late stage of the race, with fuel loads low and the track rubbered-in, the degradation rate of the soft was perfectly OK. Certainly, Sainz felt certain he would be able to pass his team-mate immediately and was intent on making that happen before Hamilton could attack him. So he was dismayed to hear the team instruction that he should bunch the field up and let Leclerc get 10 car lengths ahead on the restart. With a much more accurate picture than the team of the current tyre situation, he pleaded with them to allow him to go for the lead and leave Leclerc to fend the others off, that this was a more certain route to a team victory. Ultimately, the team accepted this and the race played out just as Sainz had hoped.

“It would have been very difficult for him because the others behind on soft tyres would have been very aggressive,” accepted Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto afterwards. “We’ve got to trust and let him do the best he can do for the team, and himself certainly but for the team. He did his best and there was no way probably to give the race to Charles. I think [Carlos] did the best he could do for a Ferrari victory here in Silverstone.”

Leclerc, who engaged Pérez and Hamilton in battle but ultimately finished only fourth in a race he’d been set to win, was clearly dismayed with how it had all worked out and was seen in deep and earnest discussion with team boss Binotto afterwards.