Tag: Fred Vasseur

Vasseur pleased with Ferrari fightback after poor start to the season

Ferrari’s calm reaction to a frustrating start to the season is paying off after Charles Leclerc’s podium in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, according to Fred Vasseur. Leclerc took pole position for both the Sprint and the main race, finishing second on …

Ferrari’s calm reaction to a frustrating start to the season is paying off after Charles Leclerc’s podium in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, according to Fred Vasseur.

Leclerc took pole position for both the Sprint and the main race, finishing second on Saturday and then holding off Fernando Alonso for third to score Ferrari’s first podium of the season. Having been a long way adrift of Red Bull in the opening rounds, Vasseur admits he expected to be more competitive but has been impressed by how the team has responded to the challenge in a short space of time.

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“For sure we were expecting to be in better shape at the beginning and I don’t want to bull**** you, but I’m very pleased with the reaction of the team because we are never in a panic mode,” Vasseur said. “After the first two events – Jeddah was tough for us – but the reaction between Jeddah and Melbourne was a very good one and the approach even on the development was never in a panic or to change everything on the car or to do a complete B-car.

“It was not the plan, we were always focused on bringing small update by small update to understand what we are doing first, to understand where we can reach the potential of the car first. I’m more than pleased by this kind of reaction. For sure I would love to be in better shape, but it’s nothing to do with the results but the reaction of the team was positive, calm, and the reaction is paying off today.”

Ferrari will have its first significant performance updates in Miami but will target regular small steps over big packages, and Vasseur believes Leclerc’s performance in Baku – where he was quicker than the Red Bull drivers in the closing stages – highlights the progress being made as the team is working on the right things.

“On one lap the pace was OK over the weekend and also thanks to Charles. And if you have a look on the last stint of the race I’m not really sure that the Red Bulls weren’t planning to do two stints.

“They were pushing like hell from the beginning to the end and we were convinced from the beginning that we were going to do one stint and we were managing a lot at the beginning it means that we probably had a tire advantage at the end. But overall they were faster than us and we don’t need to bullshit ourselves.

“Then to understand if it’s coming from aero or mechanical is another story. I think it’s so far that what was obvious is that we were struggling with consistency. It’s a bit true this weekend – all over the lap, all over the corners and all over the race I think the car was a lot more consistent this weekend and we are going in the right direction.”

Red Bull cost cap penalty “very low” – Vasseur

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur is convinced Red Bull’s penalty for breaching the cost cap last year was too light. Red Bull was handed a multi-million dollar fine and docked 10% of its aerodynamic testing time for what the FIA deemed to be …

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur is convinced Red Bull’s penalty for breaching the cost cap last year was too light.

Red Bull was handed a multi-million dollar fine and docked 10% of its aerodynamic testing time for what the FIA deemed to be a minor overspend breach of the financial regulations. Despite those penalties, Red Bull easily won both championships in 2022 and has enjoyed an even bigger advantage at the start of this season, with Vasseur saying the restrictions were never likely to have a noticeable impact.

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“The penalty for me was very low,” Vasseur said. “If you consider that basically we will improve a bit less than a second over the season in terms of aero, you get a penalty of 10% of this it’s one-tenth and as it’s not a linear progression it’s probably less. And you are allowed to spend this money somewhere else, so it means for me the penalty is marginal.”

And Vasseur says Red Bull has still done impressive work with its 2023 car to hold such a lead over the rest of the field, but that he doesn’t expect the penalty to influence matters moving forward either.

“Both, they did a good job but I’m still convinced that the penalty was very light. If you consider the rate of development that we have during the season, if you consider the fact that if you have a 10% ban it’s at the end, that means it’s not something that’s linear; you are sum-toting the performance. And then you can spend what you are saving on the wind tunnel somewhere else – on the weight saving and so on… I’m not sure that the effect is mega.

“And if you consider that you have an advantage at the beginning of the season because you spend more the year before, then the compensation… But I don’t want to say that they didn’t do a good job, because I think honestly that they did a very good j ob on the car. I’m not trying to find an excuse at all. It’s not this. But if you ask me if the penalty is too light, I say yes.”

One area Red Bull appears to have a significant advantage is when it uses DRS, but Vasseur actually believes that the previous car had a more potent rear wing design.

“A mega big DRS effect – bigger than everyone else and we have to understand how they are able to do something like this. I think it was probably even more huge last year, but we still have to improve on this area.”

Sainz penalty should have been discussed afterwards – Vasseur

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur believes the penalty for Carlos Sainz that dropped him out of the points in the Australian Grand Prix should have been discussed after the race. Sainz hit Fernando Alonso on the final race restart, spinning …

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur believes the penalty for Carlos Sainz that dropped him out of the points in the Australian Grand Prix should have been discussed after the race.

Sainz hit Fernando Alonso on the final race restart, spinning the Aston Martin from third place to the back of the field. Despite the final finishing order then being taken from the grid order – prior to the collision – Sainz was given a five-second time penalty during a red flag period that meant when all the cars crossed the line under safety car conditions he was demoted from fourth to 12th.

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“My job is to take the positives not just the negatives but just like this, jumping off the pit wall, I think it is more a negative because we did overall a good job,” Vasseur told Channel 4. “Carlos had a very good recovery after the unlucky pit stop just before the red flag and to get penalized like this just before the end is very harsh.

“For sure you are emotional in this kind of situation because you are not far away from the podium, you are P4 coming from nowhere when all the others get the pit stop for free. He did a mega job and now I think that you can discuss for hours the penalty, whether it was harsh or not.

“For sure, that depending on your team the analysis will be different but I think what is a shame for me, considering it was not impacting the podium, at least the stewards could have listened to them and have a look on the data.

“I think this is a shame, last week we changed the regulations two times in ten minutes in the pit stop for Alonso, we could have the same, at least to discuss.”

Sainz himself was distraught in the cockpit after being informed of the penalty, as the punishment was going to prove so severe, and with Alonso also feeling the decision was too harsh, Vasseur says a protest didn’t cross his mind but that it should have been reviewed in a different way.

“No, I am not a big fan of this (protesting), it’s an incident on track. But an incident on track you have always two cars in the incident and you have two ways of seeing the incident, I’m coming as the team principal of Ferrari and of Carlos, my position is not the same as the other guys in the paddock. But I think in these decisions we could take five minutes to discuss and look at the data.”

Vasseur believes Ferrari can catch Red Bull

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur believes Red Bull can be caught this season due to the development race but that finding consistency is his current priority. Red Bull has started 2023 in fine form, with back-to-back one-two finishes and one win …

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur believes Red Bull can be caught this season due to the development race but that finding consistency is his current priority.

Red Bull has started 2023 in fine form, with back-to-back one-two finishes and one win and one pole position apiece for Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez. Despite Ferrari struggling at stages in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Vasseur says he feels the gap to Red Bull can be closed, although he doesn’t want his team to get distracted by the deficit.

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“I think so,” Vasseur said. “We have to continue to push. I think it’s not the right attitude to think about the gap, to think will we be able to close the gap and so on. We have to be focused on ourselves, that we know when we are weak, and we have to improve on this one. We will see what is the outcome, when we’ll do a decent step.

“But I think if you start to think about what could be the future potential and with development and so on, you are lost. We know that we have to improve, but I think it’s the DNA of our sport. It’s not just due to the DNA of the current situation, we know that we have to work and we’ll continue, and be sure that (after a race) I’ll be in the office and push like hell.”

And Vasseur says there are likely to be some new parts delivered by Ferrari ahead of this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix but that they won’t necessarily address the biggest weakness the team currently has.

“I think we’ll have some small updates coming next week in Australia. But it’s honestly again, I don’t think that it’s coming from the potential. The main issue that we have is to always – all over the weekend – be able to do our maximum. But it’s not the case, we were not able to extract 100% of the car in every single session. It means that we have to be focused on this before thinking about updates.

“I think every single team of the grid, we are bringing updates every single weekend. We have the declaration to the FIA on the Thursday morning, and you can see that every single team is bringing updates, and we’ll continue to do it. It’s not because we are not performing or we are performing that we will change the plan.

“The updates that you will see in Australia, the parts are already in the production. It’s not that I will come back to the factory and say ‘guys, we have to push, that we will have updates in Australia’. It’s not working like this.”