Ferrari had ‘a lot of fear’ before Lewis Hamilton’s Canadian Grand Prix podium

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Ferrari were hugely sceptical ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix and expected to be further behind their rivals, but Lewis Hamilton exceeded all expectations with his P2 finish.

Mercedes and McLaren came to Montreal with new upgrades and used them to lock out the front two rows on the grid. Ferrari were much less confident, as the Canadian Grand Prix has typically not been a successful hunting ground for them.

While Charles Leclerc struggled immensely throughout the weekend, it was Hamilton who led the charge for the Prancing Horse. He did not have the package to catch race winner Kimi Antonelli, but the seven-time champion won a brilliant battle with Max Verstappen to finish second.

Lewis Hamilton surpassed Fred Vasseur’s expectations for Canadian Grand Prix

It marked the Brit’s best result for Ferrari to date, and he had a beaming smile on his face after the race. Leclerc lauded Hamilton’s ‘incredible’ performance, and it was one that the team were not expecting.

Speaking to Canal+ after the Canadian GP, team principal Fred Vasseur admitted that he expected Ferrari to be on the back foot against their rivals, but Hamilton gave the team a better weekend than they had predicted.

The interviewer told Vasseur that there was ‘a lot of fear’ at Ferrari coming into Canada, to which he replied: “Yes, we arrived in Canada with our direct rivals Mercedes and McLaren, who brought many upgrades. Us, we decided [to] skip on that one for Spain.

“And we expected to be much more behind. So that also, it is encouraging. It means that there are certain characteristics that we master maybe better. I do not know if it is the kerbs or the cold conditions but it is true that we did a better weekend than what we imagined.”

Mercedes and McLaren perhaps could not exploit their upgrades properly in Montreal, with George Russell retiring with a battery failure and McLaren suffering a disaster with strategy. Hamilton says Ferrari have greater reliability, which ultimately gave him the advantage

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Fred Vasseur says Lewis Hamilton had ‘great form’ all weekend for the first time at Ferrari

Vasseur was also asked if this was something that Hamilton had shown for Ferrari that had never been seen before. While he insists that he has had some good performances, he also admitted that this was the first time the 41-year-old showed ‘great form’ from FP1 to the race.

“He had made some good appearances in qualifying [and] in race,” he said. “But it is true that I think that it is the first weekend that he does great from the first lap of FP1 until the last lap of the race. Well, he missed his last Q3 lap yesterday, I think that he could have done better in qualifying.

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“But otherwise, he did a full weekend where he was in confidence and I think that in conditions extreme like that, where everyone struggles a bit to put some energy into the tyres, to warm the tyres, because there is no grip and it is very cold, when you are in confidence, that helps enormously.

“And it is a bit the difference that we had between Charles and Lewis.”