Frederic Vasseur shares ‘worrying’ reliability concern about Charles Leclerc’s final Monza lap

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Ferrari took a sensational victory at their home race after a risky strategy paid off for Charles Leclerc.

The Monogasque started from fourth on the grid and managed to pass Lando Norris on the opening lap, after the two McLaren’s tangled at the Variante della Roggia chicane.

Charles Leclerc held second briefly before McLaren pitted Norris early, enabling him to undercut the Ferrari driver in the pit stops. McLaren chose to run a two-stop race because of the high degradation, which Norris said exposed a weakness in their car.

After seeing the times from rivals on the hard tyres, Ferrari elected to switch both their drivers to a one-stop. Leclerc built up a strong enough gap over 10 seconds by the time Piastri pitted from the lead, while Ferrari could use Carlos Sainz as a buffer in the final 15 laps.

Despite trying to chase Leclerc down in the final eight laps of the race, Piastri was unable to succeed having spent most of the race in the lead. During the tense last few laps, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur revealed what they were most concerned about when speaking to Formu1a.uno.

Frederic Vasseur reveals Ferrari worried about reliability in last laps of Italian GP

The track temperatures were high at Monza all weekend and reached their peak during the race at over 50°C, leading to high tyre degradation on the front tyres.

This worried Ferrari in the final laps of the race according to Vasseur, as they were one of the few teams to try the one-stop strategy.

“In the last laps, I was only checking the gap and Piastri’s times, to understand what we needed. Then on the last lap, we worried about reliability and in the end we brought it home,” said Vasseur.

“I had said that Monza, Baku and Singapore could be good races for us, and I think the next circuits will suit our car. Now we just have to think about Baku, without any other strange strategies or thoughts. Let’s try to do our best there!”

Nico Rosberg highlights how Frederic Vasseur played a role in Ferrari’s win

Nico Rosberg highlighted how Vasseur played an important role in Ferrari securing their victory in front of the adoring Tifosi.

With a lot of movement behind the scenes at Ferrari, Vasseur currently holds the interim role of technical director following the departure of Enrico Cardile earlier in the season.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Scuderia Ferrari from team principal to factory

Leclerc’s strategy ‘surprised’ Piastri after McLaren appeared to not consider the one-stop as a viable strategy on a track with such high degradation.

Discussing their possibilities after the race, Lewis Hamilton observed that McLaren simply pushed their tyres too hard in the opening laps after their pit stops which affected their wear rate at the end of each stint and ruled that they could have tried the one-stop.