Leave the cup where it is.

Ferrari's Sunday at Le Castellet ended in disaster. Charles Leclerc retired from the race, and a botched pit stop for Carlos Sainz cost the team a chance to finish on the podium.

They caused a sensation during qualifying. On Saturday, Charles Leclerc took pole position, helped by his teammate, and finished ahead of his rival in the championship – the Monegasque driver's first big win of the weekend. The race got off to a perfect start, with Leclerc keeping the Dutch driver at bay, until he spun, apparently due to a throttle issue mentioned in the No. 16 driver's radio transmission. It was reminiscent of his crash in Austria, although he later retracted this suggestion and blamed himself for the mistake. With one Ferrari already out of the race, the second car was forced to fight, with Carlos Sainz finding himself at the back of the pack. He tried to take advantage of the safety car period to change tires, and everything seemed to be falling into place for the Spaniard. But Ferrari's former reliability was no longer there. Despite Sainz's claims that the team had improved its strategy and pit work, the advantage was short-lived. The result was an unusually long pit stop and a near-collision with an oncoming Williams, turning what could have been a promising weekend into a disaster for the sport's most successful team. A few laps later, the Scuderia called Sainz in for a second pit stop, even though he had the pace to fight for third place on the podium. Even with one of the two fastest cars on the grid and a chance to reaffirm its position as the sport's leader, Ferrari continued to stumble when the pressure intensified. The days of Ross Brawn's bold strategies, which controlled the races, seem to be over.