Ferrari lost more ground to Mercedes and Red Bull in the Formula 1 constructors’ championship at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished sixth and 10th on the road, Hamilton having had to fight his way through from last on the grid after being slowest in qualifying.
Though the blow might seem to have been softened slightly by both drivers gaining places through McLaren’s double disqualification, actually Mercedes benefitted more in terms of points because its drivers were both ahead of Leclerc.
Following Ferrari’s double DNF in Brazil, chairman John Elkann publicly criticising both drivers, Hamilton’s qualifying howler, and Leclerc pointing out a longstanding weakness in his cars’ wet-weather performance, this has led to a sense of an organisation in turmoil.
But team principal Frederic Vasseur argued that these dramas have skewed perceptions of the season as a whole – despite Leclerc’s comment after Las Vegas qualifying that the SF-25 was a car he "will not miss" when he egresses from the cockpit for the last time in Abu Dhabi.
"For sure we are not in the situation that we didn't score points the last weekend," Vasseur said, "but we were P2 in the championship two weeks ago.
"It's not that it was a complete disaster – for me disaster is not the right word – but the tough side is that the last two weekends that we scored six or seven points on two weekends."
