Charles Leclerc said he could not understand the tyre decision made by Ferrari which cost him the chance of a podium finish at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen won the race from 10th place with a superb drive. And it was another excellent result for Mercedes with Lewis Hamilton second and George Russell not far behind to complete the podium in Budapest.
But there will be another inquest within the ranks at Ferrari after another disaster. Leclerc was let down by a tyre strategy which just didn't work, while Carlos Sainz had his race hampered by two very slow pit stops.
Leclerc looked resigned as he appeared in front of the TV cameras after a race which saw his deficit to Verstappen in the standings grow to 80 points. "I need to speak with the team and understand the thought behind putting on the hard because I was very strong on the medium and everything was under control," he told Sky Sports.
"For some reason, I don't know why, we went on the hards. I said on the radio I was very comfortable with the medium and that I wanted to go as long as possible with those tyres because the feeling was good – I don't know why we took a different decision."
And Sainz added: "We clearly struggled as a team. Today I'm a bit puzzled because we expected to operate with race pace from Friday, but in lower temperatures it is clear there was something going on with the car and the tyres, and we were just not fast. Something to analyse and we need to regroup, see what we did wrong for these conditions and come back after the summer break with a better package.
"The first [pit stop] cost me the overcut on George, which would have simplified the race because the I wouldn't have had dirty air. But it is what it is – we've been decent on pit stops all year but it is true that now and then we have a couple that are failing us and we need to analyse what we can do better."
Team chief Binotto blamed a lack of car performance and the Pirelli tyres for the result. "We knew the hard tyres had some warm-up difficulties and would not have been as fast as the mediums, but it was a race of 70 laps and we believed they could have been fast enough to be in the race and try to have a good position, but overall they didn't work as we expected," he said.
And despite more criticism, he gave his vote of confidence to under-pressure strategy director Inaki Rueda, adding: "Looking at the overall balance of the season, we made the right strategy in France and in Austria. Sometimes we make mistakes, and the others are making mistakes, so not only Inaki but the entire team is great and I'm fully supporting them."
