Ferrari’s flop has even surprised Kimi Antonelli. Vasseur tries to explain

A huge disappointment for the Ferrari fans who traveled to Austria: the Maranello-based team, which had been riding a wave of enthusiasm following Lewis Hamilton’s victory in Barcelona, spectacularly failed to deliver, finishing just fifth with Lewis Hamilton and eighth with Charles Leclerc—well out of the running for the podium.

A real cold shower for the Scuderia, whose engines were clearly outclassed by those of the Mercedes and McLaren cars. Andrea Kimi Antonelli also expressed his surprise after the race: “They were really slow, and their deployment was really strange. I nearly collided with Leclerc at Turn 1 because of the speed difference. I was going about 30 km/h faster.”

Lewis Hamilton tried to encourage the team over the radio at the end of the race: “It was a tough race, but let’s take these points; we’ll come back stronger next time. I told you the tire degradation would be high. Fifth place isn’t the result we want, especially since things seemed to be going well at the start of the race.” Leclerc was much more direct: “Terrible car—these tires are f***ed…”

Team principal Vasseur commented on the Prancing Horse’s huge step backward: “We’ve had a power deficit since the start of the season; we knew that. Even with Aduo, we couldn’t expect to wave a magic wand and fix everything overnight. We know there’s a challenge, but we’re working on it. This is causing us to lose positions on the track, but it shouldn’t be an excuse because we won last week. Today, in the first part of the race, we wore out our tires trying to keep up with the Mercedes; maybe we should have focused on the McLarens.”

“We knew this track would be difficult for us; Barcelona suited us better. Every weekend is a different story; last weekend Mercedes was struggling, and today they’re back to winning. Next week we have to bounce back.”