Fred Vasseur defended Ferrari’s decision to stop Lewis Hamilton during the virtual safety car period at the Formula 1 Hungarian GP last Sunday, the 26th.
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The Italian team’s boss explained that the reason for the pit stop was influenced by Max Verstappen’s stint on soft tires, with the team using the Red Bull rival’s pace to see which compound would be best to go to the checkered flag.
The seven-time champion was in podium positions and after the VSC was triggered by Oscar Piastri’s problem with 16 laps to go, the team called him to the pits. This allowed Verstappen to take the position – in the end, the Briton was still penalized with 5s and dropped from fourth to fifth.
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“I think we realized, about 20 laps from the end, that the soft tire wasn’t that bad after all. We took advantage of Max’s stint and decided to go for the soft because we had the most worn tires on the grid,” Vasseur began to explain after the race and after Lewis’s criticism.
“We fell behind after the start, so we tried to do the undercut and put the tires on very early. You have to make decisions before others. We had to do the same today and tried to push the pace with the soft tire until the end,” he added.
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