Leclerc strategy call not a ‘gamble’ insists Vasseur as he vows to ‘fight until the last minute’ in teams' battle

Fred Vasseur watched his drivers come home third and fourth at the end of a mixed weekend in Austin, with Charles Leclerc scoring Ferrari’s first podium since Belgium.

The Scuderia are embroiled in a tight fight with Red Bull and Mercedes for second in the Constructors’ Championship, and Vasseur has vowed to “fight until the last minute” which was evidenced by the bold strategy calls the team made at the Circuit of The Americas.

Leclerc was the only driver in the top 10 to risk starting on the soft tyres on Sunday, and he put those to good use from third on the grid to overtake Lando Norris for P2 in the opening corners.

Although he ultimately lost out to the McLaren, Leclerc did more than enough to finish on the podium, and made life difficult for Norris by twice forcing him to pass on track to re-take P2.

“We [have] three teams in 10 points, something like this,” Vasseur said after the race, addressing the battle for P2 in the Constructors'.

“Max [Verstappen] is scoring big points each weekend, but the most important is the addition of the two cars. Let's be focused until the end. Let's try to get the best of what we have.

“I think it's a good feeling to be back on the podium, to be back with the two cars. We will fight until the last minute.”

On Leclerc’s soft tyre start, Vasseur was quick to shut down any suggestions that the strategy had been a “gamble”. Instead, he highlighted that the decision was part of an aggressive Ferrari strategy to go all out for victory.

“It’s a bet more than a gamble. I'm not sure if the others were going for medium-hard or medium-soft, but... it's also the best option for us to be P1 and up on P1. And we tried to do it. But... it's not a gamble,” he reiterated.

Leclerc drove a defensive masterclass in Austin to keep Norris at bay for lap after lap, eventually yielding only when his soft tyres were close to the end of their lifespan. He was ably backed up by Lewis Hamilton too, who came home fourth, to match his season’s best Grand Prix finish.

“He had a very strong pace from the beginning of the weekend. Except Q3, perhaps SQ3, but the pace was there from the beginning. The pace was there the last couple of weekends also,” Vasseur added.

“It's the first time that we are doing a decent weekend, putting everything together without mistakes. It's been good from the beginning.”

Hamilton remains without a podium since joining the Scuderia, although he does have a Sprint victory from back in China. The combined points haul from the two drivers mean Ferrari are just seven points behind Mercedes now in the fight for P2 in the Teams’ Championship.

But the thing that impressed Vasseur the most was how his team bounced back from a difficult start to the weekend, with Sprint Qualifying the lowlight when neither driver could extract much pace from the car.

To go from there to a rostrum and a P4 finish in the Grand Prix, beating a McLaren and both Mercedes cars was an encouraging performance as the F1 circus moves straight to Mexico for the next round of the Championship.

“It's really up and down,” he confessed. “Probably a bit more for us and probably a bit less visible for McLaren and Red Bull now. Because they have a kind of advantage in terms of pure performance.

“When they are not doing well, they are still P2, P3. When we are not doing well, we are P10. But it's true that it was a very good recovery from the team after Friday evening.”