Frederic Vasseur “very pleased” with Ferrari’s reaction and comeback from disastrous start to 2023 campaign

Further, Frederic Vasseur also wanted Ferrari to not "bull***t" themselves about the huge deficit they currently have to Red Bull.

Frederic Vasseur “very pleased” with Ferrari’s reaction and comeback from disastrous start to 2023 campaign

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur

Ferrari took a step forward in Baku, that much is beyond doubt. While Carlos Sainz struggled, due to low confidence and car balance issues, Charles Leclerc took pole position in both the sprint and the feature race. As expected, he could not maintain this level during either race – it happened multiple times last season as well. But still, the Frederic Vasseur-led team finally got on the podium, and Leclerc, after a horror start, finally had a fairly smooth weekend.

But having come into 2023 with their stated goal being to win the championship, they can’t be happy with their current level. The SF-23 is absolutely nowhere near the RB19 in terms of performance. There’s also the tire degradation issue, which has been with Ferrari since last year’s summer break. All this meant that Leclerc, who had to conserve his tires, fell back drastically after being overtaken following the safety car restart.

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Speaking about their performance after the race, Vasseur said as per RaceFans: “On one lap the pace was okay all weekend, and also thanks to Charles.” Further, he also added the fact that the teams planned different strategies – and pushed accordingly, meant that the gap was likely lower than it looked. He added: “If you have a look on the last stint of the race, I think – but I’m not sure – that Red Bull was not planning to do two stints. They were pushing like hell from the beginning to the end.”

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Of course, conserving their tires early in the stint, and not fighting overtakes, meant that Leclerc had a tire advantage towards the end stages. The Ferrari team principal said: “We were convinced from the beginning that we will do one stint, and we are managing a lot at the beginning, it meant that we had probably a tyre advantage at the end. But overall they were faster than us, we don’t have to bull***t ourself.”

Read More: Betrayal for Carlos Sainz? Frederic Vasseur proclaims he wants to be “world champion” with Charles Leclerc

Frederic Vasseur: Ferrari ‘were expecting to be in better shape’ at the start of 2023

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur

Of course, considering their goal was (and is) to win the championship in 2023, Ferrari would have expected to be closer at the start of the season. Frederic Vasseur acknowledged this. That was not the case, however. Even worse, arguably, Aston Martin is currently the second-fastest team. The SF-23 is particularly a very hard car to set up, but Ferrari have certainly made a step forward, both in performance and understanding.

The Frenchman said: “We made the important choice in terms of technical approach over the last couple of weeks and it’s paying off today. We were expecting to be in a better shape at the beginning and I don’t want to bullshit you. But what I’m very pleased with the reaction of the team, because we are never in a panic mode. After the first two events when it went [badly] – Jeddah was tough for us. But the reaction between Jeddah and Melbourne was a very good one.”

He also reaffirmed that Ferrari are not planning to introduce a ‘B car’. Instead, the focus will be on small updates, and on reaching the potential of the current car, and the concept. Of course, if it doesn’t work out for them this way, then they will likely have to change their concept anyways – they want to win world championships, after all.

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