GPI 2016 Canadian Grand Prix Edition | Page 80

OUR BIGGEST OPPONENTS The Allison speculation prompted Arrivabene to comment, “A couple of days ago I read what was written about [James] and, in my opinion, to me it is a matter of disrespect.” After the race in Montreal there were more negative headlines as the team botched their race strategy, which in the end probably cost them their first victory of the season. In the race Vettel led early on after a great start from the second row on the grid. He catapulted ahead of the Mercedes duo, before Turn 1, and put him in control of proceedings. However a virtual safety car period less than a dozen laps into the race prompted a call from the Ferrari pit wall for Vettel to come in for a tyre change, upon which he relinquished the lead and in retrospect, at that point, lost the race due to another dubious strategy call by his team. Immediately afterwards Arrivabene admitted, “We overestimated the degradation of the tyres. That’s the reason we brought [Vettel] in and it’s the wrong decision.” Despite the disappointment and opportunity lost, Vettel was not pointing fingers and rallied behind his team, “The degradation wasn’t maybe as high as we expected. That’s maybe where we lost the race. But I want to make one thing clear: I’m not a big fan of blaming anyone or anything.”