Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur expects the Scuderia to be in the battle with Red Bull and McLaren for the constructors’ championship until the end of the season, if upgrades set to be introduced at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix perform as anticipated.
McLaren has been closing in on Red Bull for a number of races and is now just 30 points adrift in the standings, but Ferrari only lost one point compared to the leading team and is 34 points behind McLaren in third. While Vasseur is not focusing solely on McLaren’s pace, he says the fluctuations in terms of which team has looked strongest at different points this season give hope to Ferrari as it prepares to introduce new developments at Monza.
“I’m not thinking [about McLaren], I’m just trying to do the best to push on the development to prepare for Monza in the best way and we will see where we can get,” Vasseur said. “If you remember 12 months ago in Zandvoort I think in the race we were P5 and P24, in qualifying we were nowhere, and the week after we were in pole position.
“That doesn’t mean that we will be in pole position [this weekend] but it’s been like this since the beginning of the season. I think after three races everyone was convinced that Max [Verstappen] will be champion mid-season, and then we won some races, then it was McLaren, then Mercedes, now McLaren, and I hope it will be Ferrari back soon.
“We just have to keep the same approach. We don’t have to try to draw conclusions about where we will be in six races. The fight is huge –everybody is pushing like hell. Everybody is bringing upgrades as soon as possible — it will be our turn this week — and it will be like this until the end of the season.
“Today I think the gap between Red Bull and us is something like 60 points — 60 points is a bit more than a good weekend.”
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Fernando Alonso singled Ferrari out as the team to beat at the upcoming races in Monza and Baku, and while Vasseur believes the tracks will suit his car more, he says the field is too close to have any confidence in who will be fastest.
“I don’t need someone telling me we are the favorite or not, I will have the same approach in any case,” Vasseur said. “I hope we will be in better shape over the next three events. We were in much better shape last year on these three tracks. Again it’s a matter of details — the fact that we are in better shape in short corners will help us, and if you are able to do a step of one or two tenths it’s a game changer.
“But we know also that everybody is improving. We know also [in Zandvoort] we still had a big gap to Lando [Norris] and we were quite far away. It means we have a lot of work to do, and I will never go to Monza or Baku with the feeling that it will be an easy one.”