Fred Vasseur is adamant that the car concept is not to blame for Ferrari’s deficit to Red Bull

Fred Vasseur feels Ferrari's SF-23 has got all the ingredients necessary to take the fight to Red Bull in 2023.

Fred Vasseur (Credits: Daily Mail)

Fred Vasseur, the Ferrari F1 Team Principal, feels the SF-23 has everything in order to take the fight to Red Bull this year. The Frenchman has said this on the back of being able to challenge Red Bull during the Bahrain GP qualifying session. The gaps were not big between Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, and Charles Leclerc.

Fred Vasseur is of the opinion that, Ferrari lost out to Red Bull during the first race of the season because of set-up-related issues. He does not see any fundamental flaw with the car and is extremely confident that his team would bounce back strong in the upcoming Grand Prix events. The Maranello-based team finished P4 in Bahrain with Carlos Sainz, whereas Charles Leclerc retired on lap 41.

Given how the evening panned out for the Italian team in Bahrain, Vasseur was asked if his team would be able to challenge Red Bull this year. As a response, he added, “I’m completely convinced about this. I never saw a car that was able to match the pace of another one in quali and not be able to in the race. Then, it is a matter of set-up and some choices on the car, but this is not a matter of concept at all. I don’t think that we have to go in this direction.”

FS Video

Looking at the comments of Fred Vasseur, one thing that can be said for certain is that, he has the utmost faith in the SF-23. He is aware of the hard work that went on during the winter break and is thus not too bothered by the outside noise.

Discover: “He could be a little bit more gracious,” Nico Rosberg pummels Max Verstappen’s attitude towards Red Bull’s problems

Charles Leclerc disappointed with Ferrari’s Bahrain outing

While Fred Vasseur feels that there is nothing major wrong with the SF-23, his driver, Charles Leclerc, does not share the same opinion. In Monegasque’s view, Ferrari has got a lot of work to do in order to catch the mighty Red Bull F1 team. Leclerc and Sainz were not able to keep pace with Verstappen and Co. during the Bahrain GP.

Charles Leclerc after his Bahrain GP DNF was asked to shed light on it and said, “It’s not good enough, We are far from Red Bull, so we need to push and understand what did they find during this break because they are on another planet on race pace. I mean, for now, we don’t know. We are fast in qualifying, but we are not fast in the race, and it’s not by a little.“

We have a lot of work to do. Not the first race we wanted to have, struggling with the pace in the race and unfortunately not finishing the race because of a reliability problem.
Two weeks to push flat out and react starting from Jeddah! pic.twitter.com/qKMYvJqB7M
— Charles Leclerc (@Charles_Leclerc) March 5, 2023

“So I think Red Bull found something big somewhere, and we need to find that. It is very difficult to understand because obviously, the car from quali to race is not changing at all, but for some reason, on one lap, we are very close to them, and in the race, we are a second away in some parts of the race. It’s a shocking, difference, so we need to look into it,” He added.

The Monegasque driver is worried after seeing the lack of pace in comparison to Red Bull in Bahrain. It is totally understandable, as he wants to fight for the Championship and does not want his team to leave even a single stone unturned. Considering the comments of both Vasseur and Leclerc, Would Ferrari be able to go wheel-to-wheel with Red Bull at the upcoming Saudi Arabian Grand Prix?