Ferrari explains decision not to pit Leclerc under late British GP safety car

After a hectic opening stint that saw Ferrari see Sainz lose and regain the lead of the race, the team found itself wary of the threat posed by Lewis Hamilton after the Mercedes driver built up a tyre delta.

Ferrari asked Sainz to give up position to Leclerc after noting it would have been marginal for both cars to get ahead of Hamilton once Mercedes brought him into the pits. Hamilton emerged in third place after stopping, but was slowly catching the Ferraris thanks to his tyre advantage.

A safety car called with 14 laps remaining prompted a flurry of late pitstops, but Ferrari opted to keep race leader Leclerc out and only bring in Sainz for a set of soft tyres.

Leclerc noted over the radio that it would be “hard” to keep the chasing cars on soft tyres behind him, and it proved to be the case. After losing the lead to Sainz heading onto the Wellington Straight after the race resumed, he then got overtaken by Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton in the closing stages.

Leclerc admitted after the race that it was “disappointing” to have missed out on victory, having seen chief F1 title rival Max Verstappen only finish seventh due to bodywork damage.

Asked by Autosport why Ferrari pitted Sainz instead of Leclerc, team principal Mattia Binotto said it was “too close to stop both of them”, prompting it to keep Leclerc out due to his fresher tyres and track position.

“There was not a sufficient gap to stop both of them, because the second would have lost time at the pit stop and would have fallen back on-track,” Binotto said.

“Why then by deciding to stop only one, why we decided to stop Carlos? Because Charles got the track position. He was leading, so he would have remained the leader of the race.

“His tyres were fresher compared to the ones of Carlos. He had I think six or seven laps less laps to the one of Carlos in a better shape.

“And Carlos, by stopping and being second, he would have protected at least in the first couple of corners where we knew that starting on the hard, it would have been a bit more difficult. That was the reason why we decided.

“Then we were hoping for more tyre degradation on the softs, to give Charles, yeah, maybe a difficult three or four laps initially but then recovering later on, but the soft didn’t degrade as we were hoping.”

Binotto thought Ferrari’s decisions on race strategy…