Binotto: We made mistakes in our judgement

The result was Charles Leclerc missing out yet again on his first Formula 1 career win at his hometown, having done everything right from his side, taking a commanding pole on Saturday ahead of the race.

But with the mixed conditions under which the race started, as heavy rain hit the track, Ferrari made another one of the their famous strategy blunders that threw Leclerc back to fourth after the pitstops where he remained till the end of the race.

Ferrari may have the fastest car this season, but they are still proving to be error prone when it comes to race execution and strategy, especially when conditions are mixed and not straight forward, and Monaco was another example of the Reds shooting themselves in the foot.

Mattia Binotto admitted his team messed up and was quoted by F1's official website saying: "First, we need to admit, if you are leading the race and then you’re finding yourself on fourth position, we may have done something wrong.

"So we certainly made mistakes in our judgement and we made mistakes in our calls. What is the process which brought us to made mistakes?

"I think the first mistake was underestimating the pace of the intermediates, and the gap we had to the other cars in terms of track position," he explained.

"The process, I think it’s still something on which we need to look at, and we just had our briefing with drivers, we went through it, we had discussions, we tried to understand but believe me it was quite a complicated one, so it was not an obvious one, but certainly we made a mistake," Binotto revealed.

Leclerc was particularly unhappy when he was called in for Intermediate tyres, while he wanted to go for the slicks, the Monegasque airing his frustration over the team radio.

"I think we made a mistake as well because we should have called him [Leclerc] earlier, at least a lap early," the Ferrari boss mused.

"If not as we did we should have stayed out and simply stayed on the extreme wet, taking I think the [lead] position, and then maybe switching directly onto the dries," he added.

It was the second hit Leclerc received in his Championship battle this year after failing to finish the previous race in Spain for a power unit problem.

He now trails rival Max Verstappen by nine points in the Drivers' Standings, as Sergio Perez lurks behind him by six points only, and the Ferrari ace called on his team to cut down on errors.

Binotto reflected on Barcelona, he said: "What happened in Spain [where Leclerc retired from the lead] was a completely different story – obviously we had reliability issues while we were completely leading the race.

"Here there were circumstances in which we make life more difficult, but we have not been great at judging and deciding.

"I’m pretty sure it’s a situation that will make us stronger," Binotto insisted. "We are pretty aware: being competitive is a fact; winning is another task and it’s another level of difficulty.

"And I think as a team we are still progressing, learning, and maybe it will take some more time," the Swiss-born Italian concluded.