Ferrari boss admits 'we focused on Mercedes too much' in difficult Austrian GP

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur conceded that too much focus was on Mercedes rather than the team's own strategy at the Austrian Grand Prix. 

Ferrari qualified impressively with Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton in second and third places on the grid, having been denied a front row lock-out only at the death in qualifying by a supreme last-gasp effort from George Russell.

However, after Hamilton had hinted that Ferrari could play some strategic games in the battle with Mercedes, the Scuderia lost sight of its own race, with the seven-time champion finishing a distant fifth place, and Leclerc a lap down in eighth. 

"Looking back, we were probably too focused on Mercedes today," reflected Vasseur. 

"We pushed too hard in the opening laps with both cars and then perhaps reacted too aggressively with the strategy, trying to stay with them when, realistically, that wasn’t our race today. We will learn from this, refocus on ourselves and immediately turn our attention to the British Grand Prix next week."

Ferrari introduced its upgraded power unit quietly on Friday, with the new parts expected to debut on Saturday and an older spec used to absorb the Friday mileage.

Despite the generally positive noises made in respect of the recent Barcelona upgrade and the new power unit, Vasseur struggled to find many other plus points from the weekend. 

"It was a tough weekend, especially coming after Barcelona," he added. 

"I don't think we got the weekend off on the right foot on Friday, as we struggled a lot in FP1 and FP2 and weren’t able to complete proper long runs in representative conditions.

"In the end, we managed to recover some performance over a single lap in qualifying, with P2 and P3, which was a good result. But we probably didn’t prepare the race as well as we should have."