Ferrari Boss Says Having Sebastian Vettel And Charles Leclerc Is "Luxury"

To Ferrari, having Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc still remain important to the race team and would allow radio call dispute on plan execution at Russian Grand Prix come in-between their relationship with the drivers.

Aside from engine problem that terminated Sebastian's contest for the race in Sochi, the German has been blamed for the team's failure to end Ferrari's winning drought in Russian for not keeping to the game plan that suggested he allow Leclerc back past him at Turn 2.

Ferrari team boss, Mattai Binotto, in his opinion has neither Sebastian nor Leclerc to blame for his team's failure to claim their fourth consecutive grand prix victory in a row but he holds the duo in high esteem describing them as "luxury" to have in the team.

Speaking after the race, Mattai said, "I still believe it's a luxury. We have got two fantastic drivers, therefore, that's where I'm starting from."

Contrary to Ferrari, Mercedes carried out their game plan with Lewis Hamilton leading Valtteri Bottas through the early part of laps before the Briton trimmed down the distance between him and Ferraris. When Sebastian broke, the gave the five-time champion the advantage to edge his rival and blasted off controlling the race through to the finish line.

Mattai explained that what really happened was different from the popular perspective in that the pair had "different opinions" on how to carry out the plan and that Sebastian had better pace than his teammate which to him was another factor.

"Looking at the video and looking at the start our judgment was that the start went as planned," Mattia said. "Therefore we thought it was right to ask Seb to swap position. Eventually, the two drivers may have different opinions by driving the car but that's something we may discuss with them."

He then added, "Later on Seb was quite fast and gained some track advantage on Charles. So we knew that we could have decided to do it later on."