What Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari engineer did ‘really well’ to assist his Monza victory

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Charles Leclerc drove to a brilliant home victory for Ferrari at the Italian Grand Prix when he made a risky one-stop strategy work.

Ferrari improvised mid-race and switched both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to the one-stop after seeing the times of their rivals on the hard tyre.

McLaren was set on the race always being a two-stop owning to their front tyre degradation, with Lando Norris admitting that it was one of their weaknesses post-race.

But it was not all smooth sailing for Leclerc. Despite getting a good start and overtaking Norris, who tussled for position with Oscar Piastri on the opening lap, the Ferrari driver was later undercut when McLaren pitted the Briton earlier.

Leclerc could be heard over team radio furiously questioning his team’s decision, but his engineer Bryan Bozzi did something that helped cover up their strategy options according to journalist Alex Kalinauckas when speaking on the F1 Strategy Report.

How Charles Leclerc’s engineer covered up Ferrari’s strategy

The one-stop strategy was always an option pointed out by F1 official tyre supplier Pirelli as an option for the race, but many teams chose to play it safe due to the high track temperatures.

Many teams also saw high wear rates from the tyres on Friday afternoon, owning to the new track surface at Monza.

Kalinauckas believes Leclerc’s engineer did well to conceal that Ferrari was considering the one-stop at a key moment during the race.

“Leclerc was furious [and questioned] ‘Why did you fit me when I’ve been undercut already?’ They didn’t answer him, his engineer just ignored him and let him have his rant and was like ‘Here’s another bit of information completely unrelated, let’s just get on with this whole thing’ I thought that was really well done from Bryan Bozzi,” said Kalinauckas.

Ferrari only team in top five at Monza to try one-stop

Ferrari was the only team that finished inside the top ten to attempt the one-stop, while their rivals at Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes all elected to run the two-stop strategy.

Piastri admitted that he was ‘surprised’ that Ferrari was able to make the one-stop work without both drivers dropping off at the end of the race, considering he was losing around eight-tenths before his final stop.

Leclerc consistently posted lap times in the 1:23s before the chequered flag, enabling him to edge Piastri to the chequered flag by 2.6 seconds.

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vassuer said that while they were confident they could pull off the one-stop, their main concern in the final eight laps was reliability.