Great news for Tifosi: Frederic Vasseur reckons Ferrari have cut down ’50 percent’ of the gap to Red Bull
According to Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari have cut down "50 percent" of their gap to Red Bull since the start of the season - but a considerable gap remains.
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Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur
Ferrari currently sit fourth in the championship. Last year, after four rounds, they were top of the table. So, 2023 has certainly been a step back, though there is still some promise of improvement. But one thing is obvious: It won’t be easy to catch Red Bull. The RB19 is a class apart during the races, and while Charles Leclerc took two pole positions in Baku, he could not match them during the races. But, according to Frederic Vasseur, they’ve still cut down a significant amount of the deficit.
Last year, too, Leclerc took many pole positions. He even won the pole trophy, with 9 pole positions – but he only won 3 races! It’s clear that the race pace is a large weakness for Ferrari. But so is the set-up – the SF-23 is a very hard beast to tame. But their understanding of it has improved, and that’s why their pace looked better in Australia and Baku, after the disaster in Jeddah. As the upgrades come in, raw performance is also expected to improve.
Their improved performance is certainly some cause for joy, though there is a long way to go yet. Speaking to Channel 4, Vasseur said: “It’s a long way to go and we have still 19 races. If you consider where we were in Jeddah and where we are today I think we did more than 50 percent of the gap.” But, he added: “The next 50 percent it’s not the easiest one. We know we have to improve and we know where we have to improve.”
Frederic Vasseur: Car now much ‘easier to drive’ than at start of 2023
The SF-23, like the F1-75 last season post-summer break, is a tire eater. This means that while they can, and were able to match Red Bull on one-lap pace many times, it was much harder to repeat this result during the race. Continuing to explain encouraging signs and Ferrari’s progress, Frederic Vasseur said: “The most important is that this kind of weekend [Baku], we took pole position and had a good stint in the race that will give us more confidence.”
One thing is clear to the Frenchman: the car is now easier to handle. He said: “I don’t know if it’s 50 or 60. I can’t speak about this. but I think the car is much easier to drive compared to the first events and this is giving more confidence to the drivers clearly and more consistency as well on the long stints. And I think that it’s clear that when the car is much more easier to drive as it was this weekend, that they are confident they can push and to do the pole position with car was quite good.”
The first of Ferrari’s major upgrades is expected to arrive in Miami. Whether or not this series of upgrades will bring them near Red Bull, one can expect a performance improvement. At this stage, the championship win looks unlikely. It seems that the Maranello team will instead have to focus on the battle for P2, as they did last season.
In case you missed it:
- “We are never in panic mode,” Ferrari remains unfazed despite repeated failures on the race track
- “The power of the team is always more important,” Frederic Vasseur insists Laurent Mekies’ departure is not a big blow for Ferrari
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)