Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur has disagreed with Sergio Perez that Charles Leclerc should have held up George Russell in the final sector at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
With Mercedes on course to pip Ferrari to second in the Constructors’ standings, Leclerc, who had been running second, elected to surrender the position to Perez.
Perez had overtaken Mercedes’ George Russell for third place but was carrying a five-second time penalty due to an earlier clash with McLaren’s Lando Norris at Turn 6.
The Mexican eventually fell 1.1s shy of beating Russell to the podium, ensuring that Mercedes edged out Ferrari by three points for second position in the championship.
Having missed out on a rostrum appearance, Perez contends that Leclerc should have delayed Russell’s progress through the tight third sector at the Yas Marina Circuit.
Asked if he realised what Leclerc was attempting, Perez said: “Yes, I did. But I mean, I was surprised that I thought Charles was going to hold back George in the end, you know, a bit in the final sector because I think I finished 1.1 seconds from George and thought he was going to hold him back.
“It was quite easy to do in the final sector, but maybe he didn’t have the full information.”
However, Vasseur denied that Leclerc could have executed the strategy better, citing how it would have been difficult for him to ensure he also still remained ahead of Perez.
“Too fair, I don’t think so,” Vasseur said when asked about Leclerc’s tactics. “That’s because you could imagine, to block Russell, then you have also to be sure that Perez is in between you and Russell.
“If you want to block Russell, it’s a matter of hundreds of seconds. I’m not a big fan of this.
“We did our best in a fair way when we let Perez go, to give him the DRS, to try to help us, but too much would have been too much.”
Meanwhile, after Russell praised Leclerc for a “clean” battle, Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff also commended the Monegasque driver for his sportsmanship.
“Perez, for quite some time, wasn’t really on the radar,” Wolff acknowledged. “We knew that they probably couldn’t hang out the one-stop when he was ahead and then kick him out 10 or 11 seconds behind us.
“At that moment, we only concentrated on ourselves and said, ‘Let’s extract the quickest race for George’, bearing in mind you need to manage the surfaces. If not, you’re falling off a cliff.
“We knew that we had to be within five seconds of Perez, but Leclerc was so far ahead that we didn’t think he could manage these gaps in order to maybe keep us behind.
“At the end, he could have pulled the handbrake on in the last sector and he didn’t. I think that shows the character of a driver.”
He added: “The fight with, Ferrari is a formidable fight between these two great brands, a team that we respect a lot and Charles drove like a real sportsman at the end.”
