Ferrari head of race strategy Inaki Rueda stated that they had asked Carlos Sainz to make a pit stop before he overtook Sergio Perez.
Sainz passed Perez for 3rd place at the end of lap 41 of 53 of the French GP. However, a radio message from Ferrari appeared during the battle. The Spaniard was told to go for a pit stop.
The message raised questions regarding Ferrari’s strategy. Several days later, Rueda explained that the delay in the TV broadcast caused the misunderstanding.
“The way that television production feeds the data to the viewers, it has a delay in it,” he said in Ferrari’s post-French GP debrief.
“In this case, you saw Perez and Carlos were fighting on lap 41. We were talking to Carlos, and we saw that Carlos could not overtake Perez on the back straight, and in turn 10 we actually called Carlos in.
“Of course he was fighting with Perez. He thought he would have him the lap after, and that’s why he decided to say: ‘Please don’t come in. Not this lap’.
“Now, you are watching the television live. That call came on the television feed at turn 15, right after the pit entry: which is nonsensical, because do we call the driver so late he cannot actually react to our call?”
