“It’s difficult to say after today’s result, but I think we’ve made a step forward this weekend,” he said. “At least technically, we have a much better understanding of the situation on Sunday night than we did on Friday morning, and I think that’s encouraging for the last part of the season.

Leclerc’s recent problems weren’t just about the car’s handling. The last thing he needed at Silverstone was a pit stop that would put him out of the race altogether.

“It’s very difficult, very difficult,” the Monegasque said at the time Motorsport spoke to him after the race. “I mean, I don’t really have the words to explain it, but it’s been four races where it’s been worse than a nightmare. So I hope we can come back soon.

“It’s very difficult to look at the positives on days like this. I just want to go back with the team and we will analyse how we make those decisions on my side and why we were on the wrong side today.”

Despite his frustration, he admitted the team had made the right decision by shelving the new parts for the time being.

“It’s a tricky situation we’re in at the moment. The upgrade gave us the numbers we expected, but it also gave us quite a bit of bounce at high speed, and for a circuit like this we decided it was probably better to have a little bit less performance, but more consistency.

“Going forward, we will analyze all the data we had so far with the two packages and try to understand if there is anything we didn’t understand yet with the new package.”

Failed upgrades and failed pit gambles might make it seem like the team is losing its way in several areas. In this case, the two were related, as Leclerc was put at risk by not going back to the old package until Saturday, and suffered in qualifying as a result. He was forced to take risks.

“I think the car was not easy to drive in the last two races at least, and it was demanding on the drivers,” Vasseur said. “Charles had the new package on Friday. We didn’t do FP3 in the rain, and he had to go into qualifying with a car he hadn’t driven before. And he was in very good shape until Turn 13, and he was faster than Russell until Turn 13.

“We make more mistakes than when it is under control”

“I think we were really at the limit of the car. We make maybe more mistakes than when we have it under control. It is true that as soon as you have a kind of bad momentum, you feel like you have to compensate. And this is a mistake of the team, of the drivers, of everyone, because you cannot compensate.

“In principle, you have to be at the limit. That means that if something is not going so well, you can’t do more than what you were doing before. I think that’s part of the reason for the call for strategy.

“He started from P11, had a really good start, but came back behind Stroll. He lost 10 seconds behind Stroll. And at some point, when you’re 15 seconds behind Carlos or Verstappen, you know that if you don’t do something mega, you’re not going to come back. And that’s probably part of the problem.”

The underlying message of Ferrari’s current troubles is that they have abandoned the team behind Lewis Hamilton’s resurgent Mercedes, which arrives at Maranello next year. The timing of the departure of technical director Enrique Cardile, who is moving to Aston, is also a little unfortunate.

But with Hungary showing promise for improvement and Vasseur remaining optimistic, the former champion and his fans have no reason to worry just yet.