Tag: Frederic Vasseur

Leclerc’s ‘very good’ tire call undone by crash damage

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur says Charles Leclerc made “a very good call” to pit at the start of the Dutch Grand Prix even though it led to a delayed stop due to the team not having tires ready. Rain on the opening lap led to some drivers …

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur says Charles Leclerc made “a very good call” to pit at the start of the Dutch Grand Prix even though it led to a delayed stop due to the team not having tires ready.

Rain on the opening lap led to some drivers opting to pit immediately for intermediates, while others tried to hang on for a longer spell before ditching their slicks. Leclerc was the second car into the pits but was delayed while Ferrari brought the intermediate tire out, but Vasseur says the confusion was due to how late the driver informed the team he was coming in.

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“The first one from Charles looked a bit strange from the outside, but it was a very good call from him,” Vasseur said. “It was a very late call, because he was in the pit lane when he told us, but even if he lost seven or eight seconds in the pit lane it was a good one. If you look at (Pierre) Gasly, he took a step forward with this type of call and it was the right choice to stop on lap one.

“The rain was in the last corner and he decided to pit. It was a very late call, but I think it was still the right decision because we were in a much better position than before even with the six or seven seconds we lost in the pit lane. For sure, if you are 10 seconds behind or five seconds behind and you make the call, it is much easier. But I don’t have to complain about this because it was the right call.”

Leclerc’s race soon turned sour as he dropped through the field, with Vasseur explaining he was unlucky with debris damaging his car.

“He damaged the front wing end plate and the end plate went into the floor and damaged the bottom of the floor.”

Carlos Sainz went on to finish fifth but didn’t have the pace to fight Gasly for the podium, and Vasseur says the rain-hit race didn’t play into Ferrari’s hands due to the set-up the team had chosen.

“For sure we were on the low side of the downforce and the conditions didn’t help us, it’s clear. It would have been much better to have standard conditions, or more consistent conditions, but it is not an excuse at all. We were probably a bit too much up and down.

“If you have a look at what Charles did (in qualifying), I think the pace was very good before the crash. But it’s not the result we were expecting overall and you have to judge just on the result as well.”

Ferrari ‘going in the right direction’ despite missed double podium – Vasseur

Ferrari’s strategy might have cost it a double podium opportunity in the Austrian Grand Prix but it is making progress against its rivals, according to Fred Vasseur. Charles Leclerc finished second to Max Verstappen on Sunday but Carlos Sainz was …

Ferrari’s strategy might have cost it a double podium opportunity in the Austrian Grand Prix but it is making progress against its rivals, according to Fred Vasseur.

Charles Leclerc finished second to Max Verstappen on Sunday but Carlos Sainz was shadowing his teammate for the first stint before both cars were brought into the pits under an early Virtual Safety Car. Two slow stops resulted in Sainz losing time and track position, later picking up track limits penalties that demoted him from fourth – after a thrilling podium fight with Sergio Perez – to sixth.

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“Probably yes, he was not far away from the (pace) of Charles,” Vasseur said of Sainz’s chance of a podium. “We need to have a look on the strategy if it was a good one. I think it was a good one for the pit wall. For sure they brought out the VSC 10 meters too late for us, because we were already on the white line, and (ended it) 10 meters too early because we are still into the pit lane. But we cannot predict when they remove the Safety Car or VSC. It is like it is.

“We have to be focused, everybody has to be focused on ourselves. We are doing a good job together with the team, the drivers. We are going in the right direction. I want to keep this going.

“For (Silverstone) I don’t know, it’s so tight. I don’t want to speak about Max, but in our group with Mercedes and Aston, you never know before the weekend who will be in a good position. With Max, there is still a gap. It means that we have to continue to develop the car and push. But what is positive for us is that we’re going into the right direction, compared to Montreal, we are going in the right direction. We have to continue like this and continue the development.”

Despite back-to-back races where Ferrari has shown improved pace on Sundays, Vasseur is still not convinced it is a trend that will continue for the rest of the season.

“I don’t know. It’s true that Canada was a very strong one in terms of race pace, and we were waiting for Spielberg because it’s a bit different compared to the other track layout and tarmac, and it was a good confirmation this weekend.

“But it’s a never-ending project, never-ending discussion each week that teams are bringing upgrades, pushing… We have different tarmacs, different layouts – next weekend will be a completely different one, and we have to continue to develop the car to give to the drivers a better quality.”

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.”

Saudi tire issues obscured Ferrari progress – Vasseur

Ferrari’s progress from the first race to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is being overlooked due to problems on the hard compound tire, according to team principal Fred Vasseur. Red Bull set the pace once again in Jeddah but the circuit was expected …

Ferrari’s progress from the first race to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is being overlooked due to problems on the hard compound tire, according to team principal Fred Vasseur.

Red Bull set the pace once again in Jeddah but the circuit was expected to suit Ferrari’s car and appeared to do so in qualifying where Charles Leclerc was within 0.2s of pole position, albeit without Max Verstappen in the session. In the race, Leclerc recovered ground early on after a grid penalty but then both cars struggled on the hard compound, and Vasseur (pictured middle, above) says the final result of sixth and seventh doesn’t reflect the car’s potential.

“It’s an early stage to have a clear picture for the season, but so far I think the pace was decent (in qualifying) because we made a step forward and we opened the gap to Mercedes and Aston in qualifying,” Vasseur said. “With Charles we were at least three or four tenths faster than Aston and Mercedes.

“The first stint went pretty well also — Charles had a good comeback but he was on softs and nobody knows about the different compounds, but Carlos (Sainz) was showing decent pace in the first stint on the medium compared to the others and we lost the ground completely with the hard.

“That’s where we have to understand the main issue and if we have some improving to do, it’s clearly with the management of the different compounds over the weekend.”

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Vasseur admits he finds it tough to understand why there is such a pace difference at certain times for Ferrari compared to Red Bull and its rivals, but not at others.

“I can’t imagine that the car is able to be quick on one lap with the C4 and be nowhere with the long stint,” he told SpeedCity Broadcasting. “Yeah (Red Bull) was much, much, much quicker than everybody with the hard. We have to understand exactly what’s happened because I can’t imagine that a car can perform on one lap and then have such a huge difference on the long stints.

“I think we are not far away in terms of potential, we are just not able to extract the best out of the car at some stages in the weekend.”