Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has acknowledged the Scuderia made the wrong tyre call at the start of the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang, but credited Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc with salvaging third and fourth place finishes from a race that threatened to unravel within the opening laps.
Vasseur confirmed that roughly half the field opted for slick tyres at the start, a decision that proved costly as the track dried far more slowly than teams anticipated based on prior experience at Sepang. The pit stop to switch to intermediates cost Ferrari 26 seconds, a significant chunk of time in a race where track position proved decisive.
“It’s not that I have no regrets — for sure, it’s clear that it was better to start with inters, but we did the choice with information that we had,” Vasseur said. “You can’t try, you just have a look on the tarmac in front of you in the pit lane, and for sure it was not the good one.”
Leclerc’s afternoon was further complicated by contact with Nico Hulkenberg at the start, forcing an immediate pit stop for intermediates and a replacement front wing. Hamilton, however, chose to stay out on slicks longer than most, a call Vasseur said the team left to the driver’s discretion.
“We let him have the choice,” Vasseur said. “He did a very good race, very smooth strategy. He was able to do a mega long stint with very good tyre management with the soft.”
Both drivers ultimately benefited from late-race fortune — George Russell’s retirement promoted them each one position, while Isack Hadjar was hampered by a battery issue that limited his ability to defend. Still, Vasseur was clear that the pace Ferrari showed was genuine, pointing to the team’s front-row qualifying performance the previous day as further evidence.
“The pace was solid, and when Lewis was at the end of his stint with the soft, he was still doing a very good lap time,” Vasseur said. “We showed the same pace yesterday. We were on the first row, but we were also on the first row in Baku. But the race pace was much better this weekend.”
Vasseur also noted the unusual conditions drivers faced, with track temperatures running approximately 30 degrees cooler during the race than in practice, creating a dramatically different surface. The mixed tyre strategies that followed the Safety Car restart — with soft, medium, and hard compounds spread across the field simultaneously — added further complexity.
With the Singapore Grand Prix next on the calendar, Vasseur was characteristically measured when asked about Ferrari’s prospects. “Let me have a beer tonight, and we discuss about Singapore tomorrow morning,” he said.