Fred Vasseur seeks silver lining as Ferrari sinks…

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has identified the positives after a disastrous weekend in Brazil left the Maranello outfit overtaken by both Mercedes and Red Bull in the constructors' standings.

The weekend started with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton qualifying in P8 and P11 for the sprint race, respectively. While both were able to finish the sprint in the points, bringing home six points for the team with P5 and P7 finishes, Mercedes scored P2 and P3 finishes. The Brackley outfit's 13 points put it ahead of Ferrari in the championship before the grand prix even began.

Hamilton suffered a Q2 elimination in the grand prix qualifying, leaving the seven-time champion with a P13 start. His team-mate Leclerc, on the other hand, managed a P3 start. However, Ferrari's weekend went from bad to worse as the Brazil Grand Prix ended in a double DNF when Leclerc suffered a clash with Andrea Kimi Antonelli as a knock-on effect of contact with Oscar Piastri, and Hamilton retired due to damage from early collisions with Carlos Sainz and Franco Colapinto. As a result, Red Bull overtook Ferrari in the standings.

“After an afternoon like this, you have to look at what were the positives from the weekend, even if it is difficult to find any when the season is coming to an end and you have a double DNF: in sprint qualifying we got a decent result, in the sprint race the pace was good and qualifying went well with Charles," Vasseur explained in the Ferrari debrief.

"It's been a very tough Sunday. I had the feeling that, at least with Charles, we were in a good place but we paid the price for a collision between Antonelli and Piastri, which is very harsh for him and the team. He was in the right place, he was P2 and then he was out.

"It's disappointing, because he was in a position where he could have fought for P1 or at least the podium. In a situation like this, not only are you losing points, but you are also giving points to the others.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari (Photo by: Zak Mauger / LAT Images via Getty Images)

"With Lewis, he lost a huge amount of downforce, either from the crash with Sainz or when he ended up with the front wing under the floor or from both incidents. Lewis had good pace, but you cannot come back after two crashes. Calling him to retire was logical, as he was last and missing 30 to 40 points of downforce on the car.

"So, we served the penalty and then retired the car. It is very difficult to draw conclusions from this weekend because of the way it ended. We recovered well after a tricky start on Friday, but this result is a shame for us, a shame for the championship fight, but we now will now head home to Maranello and prepare as well as possible for the final triple-header of the year.”

Now P4 in the constructors' standings, Ferrari sits four points behind Red Bull in P3 and 36 points behind Mercedes in P2.