Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur says Hamilton and Leclerc “saved the day” after Bahrain call goes wrong at Sepang

By Vancouver Television Sports Desk

Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur said Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc “saved the day” at the Sepang circuit after a difficult opening to the Bahrain Grand Prix, following a tyre strategy that he later acknowledged was the wrong one. After the opening laps looked set to turn into disaster, Ferrari recovered to finish third and fourth, with the result improved further by a late retirement involving George Russell.

Vasseur said roughly half of the field had chosen slicks and the rest wets, but pointed to Ferrari’s need to re-evaluate the decision once the conditions evolved. “I think 50 percent of the cars went for slicks, 50 for wets,” 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.”

While he admitted that an inters start would have been preferable, Vasseur framed Ferrari’s decision as one made on the information available at the time. “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,” he said. He added that the track dried more slowly than expected, describing the miscalculation as central to the later recovery.

According to Vasseur, the decision process was based on expected parameters, but the outcome showed it was not the right call. “When you have to take your decision, you are trying to base the decision on good parameters,” he said. “But for sure, at the end of the day, we have to be lucid that it was not the right call, that it would have been much better for us to start with inters. But we were considering that it will dry very quickly, and so on.” He also noted that the pit-stop loss was substantial, pointing to a 26-second stop.

Leclerc’s recovery began early after contact with Nico Hulkenberg at the start of the race. Vasseur said Leclerc pitted immediately for inters and a new front wing, shifting the strategy into a rapid reset. Despite the shake-up, he and Hamilton both delivered race pace strong enough to work through the field and produce a points haul Ferrari could build on.

Hamilton, meanwhile, stayed with slicks longer than many others. Vasseur said several drivers abandoned slicks soon after, in some cases even before the first flying lap, but Hamilton chose to stay out, insisting the risk was justified. “We let him [have] the choice,” Vasseur said. “At the end, in this situation, they are in the car. When we are telling him that we are ready, it’s just to tell him that he can pit if he thinks that it’s the right call.”

Vasseur praised Hamilton’s execution once the strategy changed later. “He did a very good race, very smooth strategy. He was able to do a mega long stint with a very good tyre management with the soft,” he said. With the recovery depending on both pace and tyre control, he credited the car’s performance as the foundation that helped elevate the drivers up the order—particularly after the early struggle caused by the initial tyre choice.

Asked what could have been possible with an inters start, Vasseur stopped short of claiming a clear alternative outcome, noting that the race would have differed in traffic, pace and overtaking demands. “I don’t know, because the race is for sure different when you have to overtake 20 cars rather than run in front,” he said. Still, he acknowledged Ferrari’s confidence in its speed, saying he was “not mega optimistic after Lap 1,” but that the pace remained solid throughout.

He also linked Ferrari’s results to weekend-to-weekend context. Vasseur said Ferrari had shown comparable pace earlier, describing strong form in qualifying, and explained that the race itself posed more complex management challenges due to shifting track temperatures compared with earlier sessions. “We were all a bit lost,” he said, including on the restart after the Safety Car, when different tyre compounds were in use across the field in a way he described as unusual.

Looking ahead, Vasseur chose to keep expectations flexible. “Let me have a beer tonight, and we discuss about Singapore tomorrow morning!” he joked. He added that each race brings different conditions but said Ferrari expects to be competitive again, while emphasizing that the team will review what it learned from Sepang before the next event.