With every single race in 2023, The Ferrari team are finding themselves in trouble. According to Billy Monger and Johnny Herbert, what has been most surprising about Ferrari’s campaign so far is the number of mistakes their strategy team has made. While speaking on the most recent episode of the Lift The Lid podcast, both explained how the Prancing Horse will never be in a position to be the best if they continue to make fundamental errors.
One error from Ferrari that both Monger and Herbert couldn’t understand was their pit-stop decision at the Dutch GP. There was a miscommunication between the Ferrari team and Charles Leclerc as the tires were not ready when the Monegasque came in for a pit stop.
We didn’t realize it was a Sprint weekend 😂 #ItalianGP 🇮🇹 #F1 pic.twitter.com/KIG0C2dZeI
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) August 31, 2023
As a result, the 25-year-old lost out on a number of positions. Monger and Herbert cannot fathom such problems at Ferrari as they believe that making such decisions should be the easiest task for an F1 team.
Monger and Herbert slam Ferrari for their failed pit stop
While speaking on the most recent episode of the Lift The Lid podcast, Billy Monger began by explaining how disappointing it was to see Ferrari not only struggle for pace during the Dutch Grand Prix weekend but also with their strategic decisions. He pointed out how the team now has made an unfortunate history of making poor pit stops.
“Just get the simple things right. Have the tires ready for a pit stop. That is not a complex thing to do in the world of Formula 1. If you cannot do basics right, no matter what sport you are doing, you are never going to be the best,” explained Monger.
Since Ferrari does not seem to get the fundamental things right, Monger believes that the team at times makes themselves “look silly“. He then went on to point out how most fans now only respect Ferrari for what they used to be rather than what they are continuing to do today.
Monger also mentioned that he does not know how can the team fix this problem, as there are so many mistakes. Johnny Herbert then added that it is now the responsibility of Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur to get the team back together.
Can Fred Vasseur help the Prancing Horse rediscover their form?
Johnny Hebert noted that while Fred Vasseur is experienced, he does believe that the Frenchman has a huge task on his hands to get Ferrari back together. The former British driver then added that the team also have the right drivers at the side even though both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have been guilty at times of making errors.
Herbert believes that while the drivers also need to take care of their responsibility, he made it clear that at no point it is fair for the racers to take care of strategic decisions. The 59-year-old believes that Ferrari has to be on top when it comes to their strategy and cannot let their drivers make important calls.
After stating the same, Herbert stated that the track at which Ferrari are on is not good for the brand and that it is not good for F1. Billy Monger also agreed with Herbert and added that the decision-making of Ferrari should be at the same level of top teams like Red Bull to ensure that only two things decide the outcome of the race.
First, Monger noted was the capability of the cars. And second, he noted was the capability of the drivers to get the best out of the cars. He made it clear that at no point he wants to see a race be decided by poor strategic calls from any of the teams.
