{"id":895176,"date":"2026-09-17T10:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/895176\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T10:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T10:04:13","slug":"nico-rosberg-names-ferrari-achilles-heel-after-messy-spanish-gp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/895176\/","title":{"rendered":"Nico Rosberg names Ferrari ‘Achilles heel’ after ‘messy’ Spanish GP"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nico Rosberg says Ferrari<\/a>\u2019s strategy and its communication remain the team\u2019s \u201cAchilles heel\u201d after Charles Leclerc<\/a> finished fourth at the Spanish Grand Prix despite leading the most laps.<\/p>\n

Ferrari scored just 12 points at the Madring\u2019s debut Grand Prix after Leclerc secured fourth place, while brake failure early in the race forced Lewis Hamilton to retire his SF-26.<\/p>\n

Nico Rosberg says Ferrari\u2019s strategy and communication remain weaknesses<\/p>\n

Hamilton and Leclerc lined up fourth and fifth on the Madring grid after a closely contested qualifying session in which the top five were separated by less than two-tenths of a second.<\/p>\n

Hamilton\u2019s challenge was over almost before it began when he suffered brake issues and limped back to the pits to retire his SF-26, \u201cbarely\u201d able to stop the car.<\/p>\n

A Virtual Safety Car on Lap 15 saw Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen, who were running second and third, head into the pits before the race leader Lando Norris came in a lap later. <\/p>\n

That elevated Leclerc, who had started on the hard Pirelli tyres, into the lead. Leclerc led from Lap 16 to Lap 50.<\/p>\n

Leclerc, though, wasn\u2019t sure what Ferrari\u2019s plan was.<\/p>\n

As he approached Lap 40 on his first set of tyres, Leclerc asked his race engineer Bryan Bozzi about his race \u201csituation\u201d. He was told that if he pitted at that moment, he would drop behind Norris. <\/p>\n

Ferrari, he was told, was instead keeping a Safety Car gap to the McLaren driver.<\/p>\n

But as the laps counted down without a Safety Car, Leclerc was called into the pits to swap his hard tyres for a set of softs with seven laps remaining.<\/p>\n

He finished in fourth place, 24 seconds behind Norris, who was in the final podium position.<\/p>\n

Rosberg believes Ferrari\u2019s strategists \u2013 not for the first time \u2013 got it wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t it the case that Ferrari always has messy weekends?\u201d the 2016 F1 world champion told Sky\u2019s F1 Show podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just the Achilles heel is still in the strategy area, communications area, that\u2019s always been a weakness and still is a weakness of theirs now.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pace of the car is damn close to being able to challenge consistently for race wins, and even this weekend, Lewis would have been a comfortable second position in the race on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe would have finished second after Max had to let him through. So he would have definitely finished second place behind Kimi, quite easily. <\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think they are very close, they are just not putting it together properly and they need to somehow make progress on that. That\u2019s the main problem they are facing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur believes Leclerc had the pace to win the Grand Prix, but explained that Ferrari kept him out for the long first stint because track position was vital at a race that saw fewer overtakes than the Monaco GP.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see the pace of Charles,\u201d he told PlanetF1.com and other accredited media in Madrid, \u201cyou can imagine that we have the pace to fight with everybody. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was more a matter of track position.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonesty I think it was mega difficult to overtake but more focus on my car so I don\u2019t know who overtakes during the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this situation, it\u2019s just about track position.\u201d<\/p>\n

He does, however, accept that Ferrari needs to improve its qualifying performances to give the drivers the best possible chance in the race.<\/p>\n

More on the Madring\u2019s F1 debut on PlanetF1.com<\/p>\n

Spanish GP conclusions: Imaginary Hamilton challenge over, Norris joins elite, soulless Madring<\/a><\/p>\n

Winners and losers from the 2026 Spanish Grand Prix<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have a look at quali,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s true that if you have a look on the fourth stint in quali, that one time is Max, one time is Norris, one time is Kimi, one time is Lewis.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut we need to improve. We need to improve because I think when you have a look on the pace during the race, that the pace is there. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean that for sure we need to do a better job in quali.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher<\/p>\n

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp<\/a> to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.<\/p>\n

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel<\/a> for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!<\/p>\n

Read Next:\u00a0Russell\u2019s Mercedes future was settled long before Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull decision<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nico Rosberg says Ferrari\u2019s strategy and its communication remain the team\u2019s \u201cAchilles heel\u201d after Charles Leclerc finished fourth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":895177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,826,813,816,818,44,32189,85],"class_list":["post-895176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-news","tag-spanish-grand-prix","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=895176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/895176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/895177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=895176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=895176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=895176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}