Ferrari’s Las Vegas grand prix was characterised by some major missteps in communication but also by incredibly tough tyre wear. Charles was especially affected by graining on his medium tyre after pushing more in the race’s opening stages to chase down Russell. This meant that from lap 7 onwards he had a significant drop in pace, was overtaken by Sainz and Verstappen and pitted for the hard tyre on lap 9.

Sainz was also suffering graining at this point despite having taken a more cautious approach to the starting laps. He boxed a lap later than Leclerc to switch to the hard tyre in an attempt to minimise the threat of being undercut by Verstappen and emerged ahead of his teammate but in traffic with drivers yet to stop.

Once this traffic was cleared from lap 18, Verstappen, Sainz, Leclerc and Hamilton were running in P2 to P5, with just over six seconds separating these four drivers. Sainz could not make inroads to Verstappen to challenge for P2, and with his far superior pace, Lewis Hamilton quickly caught the back of Leclerc.

In response, the Ferrari drivers closed down their gap so Hamilton’s DRS on Leclerc would be neutralised. On lap 26, Sainz became aware of the pressure he was under from Hamilton and Leclerc and the threat of overtakes by both and asked to box.

This request wasn’t taken up by the pit wall who instead asked Sainz and Leclerc to swap positions into turn 14, which also didn’t happen. This left them in the same order as the lap before with increasing pressure not only from Hamilton but also on Sainz from Leclerc, whose pace increased to be four tenths a lap quicker than Sainz.

The swap eventually came on the next lap into turn 14, but Sainz and Hamilton peeled into the pits so it’s too little too late, until Sainz is told to “stay out, stay out” at the last second and bailed out of his stop.

This is the first big mistake by Ferrari – missing this pit opportunity cost Sainz around three seconds and meant he had to pit on the following lap. It also benefitted Lewis Hamilton who came out of the pits in net P2 and in clean air. With Leclerc being told his pace is similar to Russell in the lead, Ferrari also make the decision to extend his second stint.

Unfortunately this also falls short as Leclerc is once again hit by graining, his pace begins to suffer and he pits just three laps after Sainz. 

Leclerc is told by his engineer that it will be close on pit exit with Sainz but that Sainz has been told not to overtake. However Sainz is never told this and is instead told not to pressure Leclerc on exit. Following the directions he was given, Sainz overtook Leclerc given his warmer tyres and pace advantage coming off the start-finish straight. While Sainz is able to push more on his tyres given that they’ve been brought into the working window gradually, Leclerc has to focus on beginning this process and not sliding to hold off the graining effect for as long as possible and so is told not to follow Sainz through on pace.

As a result, Leclerc has not only been undercut by Lewis Hamilton who is running in net P2, but also by his own teammate due to this tyre differential at pit exit and this team orders misunderstanding. He’s also then put in a position to have to push his tyres in the final stint’s closing stages to overtake Verstappen and secure P4 – something Sainz didn’t have to do once past Verstappen and into P3 on track.

Had Carlos pitted on lap 27 as he wanted and was expecting without the error from the team then Hamilton’s undercut would have been covered. But Fred Vasseur said post-race that doing anything differently wouldn’t have changed the outcome, simply because of the superiority of the Mercedes.

“Perhaps this is a different approach in the weekend, but I don’t think that today from the starting grid that we [could] expect better than this,” he said. This is a consensus shared by Carlos Sainz, who reflected that “considering the pace Mercedes had today I think we maximised the team’s points, and even without the misunderstanding at the pit entry on my second stop I don’t think we would have been able to stay ahead of Lewis.”

But it may have changed the outcome off track – Sainz was frustrated that he wasn’t brought in when he asked which would have alleviated the car switch situation and the pit error, and Leclerc was frustrated as Sainz overtook him at pit exit which went against what he believed he had been told by the team.

Despite these difficulties, Ferrari’s P3-P4 finish means they sit just 24 points adrift of McLaren who lead the constructors’ standings, with 29 points back to Red Bull in P3. Fred Vasseur is not optimistic about Ferrari’s chances in Qatar however, saying that “on paper” it is “not the best one for us”. The team principal maintains that Abu Dhabi represents Ferrari’s best chance at challenging McLaren right down to the wire; “in the last one anything can happen, and we will push until the last corner of the last lap of the last race.”