Ferrari has explained why it decided against using Lewis Hamilton to try to tow team-mate Charles Leclerc to pole position at Formula 1's Italian Grand Prix.
Hamilton's five-place grid penalty for this weekend's race at Monza meant he would never be in contention to start at the front – so opened up an opportunity for him to be used to give Leclerc a beneficial slipstream.
The idea seemed even more of a logical option for Ferrari with the field being so competitive in Italy and a tiny advantage from a tow potentially having a big impact in the fight for the top spot.
Hamilton himself had even suggested in the build up to the weekend that he would be open to the idea if it meant helping Leclerc to the front.
"It's not been discussed," he said. "But if it meant getting Charles there, then I would be happy to play that role."
But despite the opportunity that was clearly on the table as Leclerc matched eventual pole position man Max Verstappen in the first Q3 runs, Ferrari elected not to impose it for the second efforts – with Leclerc holding track position in front of Hamilton throughout.
While Leclerc was happy with the lap he delivered, he admitted not getting the perfect tow from those ahead of him perhaps compromised him as he ended up 0.215 seconds behind Verstappen at the end.
"I'm happy in a way that I think we've maximised the package that we had today, and I think I did a really good first lap in Q3," he said.
"Unfortunately on the second lap of Q3 I was a little bit in the front with nobody - or just Yuki [Tsunoda] - in front. That makes a big difference here, so there wasn't much more that we could have done.
"But I think we did a good job maximising the result. I think the gaps show that McLaren and Red Bull are a bit too far ahead."
Asked if the slipstream should have been discussed, Leclerc said: "It's something we'll discuss with the team now.
"It's always tricky to get it perfectly right and Lewis is still fighting to be starting as far up as possible. So we'll discuss about it, but I don't think it's the main point of today."
Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur was pretty clear after the session that while there were theoretical gains to be had from the slipstream, there were too many downsides to doing it.
With the way that cars have to run at a minimum speed throughout the lap, it would mean needing to totally sacrifice the car in front from being able to do a competitive lap.
Speaking to F1 TV after qualifying about why Ferrari did not go for the tow tactics, Vasseur said: "Because with this story of maximum lap time, if you do it, you have to sacrifice one car, and it's important for the team and for the two drivers to be in a positive mood.
"For sure, it could work, but also could not work at all, even for Charles, because you are much more focused then on the tow, the gap with the car in front of you, than on the tyre preparation. And the tyre preparation is so important today that we decided to be focused on your own pace."
Vasseur added that his conclusion was Ferrari had done the right thing in focusing more on the tyre work – but did concede that things could have been different had Hamilton been totally out of the picture in terms of a grid position.
"We decided to do it this way, without sacrificing anyone," he added. "Seeing Leclerc's gap, I don't think he would have taken pole anyway. Charles understood and didn't ask for it. It would have been different if Lewis had started from the pitlane."
Hamilton, who qualified fifth but starts 10th because of his grid penalty, said that the slipstream had never been considered because of the risks involved of getting it wrong.
"It's not something that's been in any of my other teams," he said. "Ultimately, you potentially end up sacrificing one of the drivers. And I've already got a five-place penalty, so points wise I needed to be as high as I could."
Bitter feeling
Leclerc said that being happy with a lap that ended up only being good enough for fourth on the grid was not something to be overjoyed about.
Asked if there was a bittersweet feeling, he said: "It's also bitter when you are fighting for fourth and third place. So maybe.
"In the end it's kind of what we expected. But we shouldn't be satisfied, we should be pushing as much as we can to try to turn that situation around. It's what we are doing.
"At the end of the day, I did the lap that I wanted, I put everything together, I'm very happy with my lap actually and I don't think there was much more possible. So on that side I'm positive. But obviously starting fourth isn't great."
