F1 News: Ferrari dodge responsibility for disaster Brazil strategy
In typical fashion, Ferrari has refused to accept that its strategy was ill-thought and ultimately costly during qualifying in Brazil.
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were safely through to Q3 for the Scuderia, again demonstrating their abilities in difficult and slippery conditions.
Whilst Kevin Magnussen's inspired Pole lap would have taken a special lap to overcome, Ferrari's decision to put Leclerc on intermediates was inexplicable.
Rain was indeed expected to intensify, but the beginning of Q3 presented a window of opportunity to set a lap on dry tyres before conditions worsened.
Every other team identified this, leaving their garages immediately and putting on dry tyres to set a hot lap as quickly as possible.
Ferrari decided to split their strategy, thereby guaranteeing that at least one of its drivers would be caught out.
In this case, it was Leclerc (not Sainz, who takes a 5-place grid drop) that was given the intermediates in this speculative decision.
Speaking to the Sky F1 after qualifying, Ferrari's sporting director Laurent Mekies justified the team's decision:
"Since this qualifying has been a lottery, we knew that the rain was imminent, so we divided our strategies", formulapassion.it quotes Mekies as saying.
"It was a matter of a minute, a minute that could have rewarded Sainz or Leclerc. Sorry for Charles.
"However, this was a good test for the future. We made 6-8 important decisions between drivers and teams in an hour.
"Because even in Q1, we didn't know whether to get back on track with intermediate tyres, we waited because we saw the excellent Gasly times.
"There is always something to learn, and the choice for Q3 was truly borderline."
Missing from this entire explanation was an admission of guilt, an admission that Ferrari has once again cost Charles Leclerc.
The championship fight is already out of the question, but this does not justify severely complicating Leclerc's chances of victory this weekend.
The Monegasque has always proven fast in wet conditions, but Ferrari's strategy will make the rest of the weekend at Interlagos an uphill struggle.