Fred Vasseur says Ferrari’s confidence in its 2024 car means it can continue to put pressure on Red Bull and take advantage of any mistakes.
Carlos Sainz won the Australian Grand Prix, leading home a Ferrari one-two to add to the podium finishes behind Red Bull that the team had achieved in the opening two rounds. While Max Verstappen retired in Melbourne, Vasseur says mistakes are more likely from Red Bull if Ferrari can be consistently putting pressure on, and he feels that is a realistic target given the form the Scuderia is showing so far.
“Confidence is a huge part of the result in this business, and I think we are building up the confidence over the last months,” Vasseur said. “It was already the case over the last part of the season last year. [Melbourne] I think is good evidence that when we are putting everything together – and I’m not sure that we will be able to do it every single weekend – we can put them a little bit under pressure.
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“When they are under pressure, then they will also do more mistakes. It means that we have to continue in this direction. We are much more confident of the fact that we can manage this kind of level, because from lap one on day one, we were there and it was quite smooth. It’s in this situation that we are doing the best car for the Sunday.”
Vasseur attributes that added confidence to the more predictable car that has been delivered this season, as it gives Ferrari more consistency both for the drivers behind the wheel but also to then add performance with upgrades.
“I think even last year it was like this,” he said. “We are ready quite soon into the weekend, but when you have small issues or reliability issues, or not a clean weekend, then you are losing time and when you are [chasing] after Red Bull you cannot lose one lap.
“From the beginning of the season we had very consistent sessions from FP1 to the qualifying. We were a bit disappointed (in Melbourne) after the qualifying because we had the feeling that we could have done a better job, but considering the race was more based on the tire management and tire deg then it was not a drama, and [the race] was a good example.
“I’m not focused at all on the performance of Red Bull, I’m focused on the performance of our car. We made a huge step forward, perhaps on the base of one lap it’s true but we were not nowhere last year on one lap pace.
“But we made a huge step, I think it’s more on the consistency between the two compounds. Between one stint and the other one the car is much easier to drive, much easier to read also for the drivers – and much easier to develop. It’s probably the biggest step that we did compared to last year, having something that we can have at least a good read of the car quite early in the weekend.”