New Ferrari team principal for the 2023 season, Frederic Vasseur admitted after the Saudi Arabian GP that the gap to Red Bull “was huge”, but insists that the Scuderia is focusing on itself to find improvements. He also explained the main difficulty the team faced with different tyres over the weekend.
Photo Credits: Scuderia Ferrari
It was yet another disappointing showing from Ferrari on race day in Jeddah, as the team could only manage a sixth and seventh place finish, with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc respectively, with the former even admitting the red cars were “the fourth fastest” in the race.
Despite a strong qualifying performance from Leclerc which was only 0.155s shy of Sergio Perez’s best efforts in the sole remaining Red Bull after Max Verstappen’s early Q2 exit, the race pace was lacking for the Scuderia.
Speaking to print media after the race in Saudi Arabia, team principal Frederic Vasseur outlined how the team’s main issue was in the race – specifically when using the hardest compound – and how the qualifying pace was a “step forward” as Leclerc had a solid buffer over his nearest rivals of Aston Martin and Mercedes:
“It’s an early stage to have a clear picture about the season,” said Vasseur. “I think that the pace was decent [in qualifying] because we made a step a forward and we opened the gap compared to Mercedes and Aston [Martin].
“In qualifying, at least with Charles [Leclerc], we are still four tenths faster than Aston and Mercedes.
“The first stint [of the race] went pretty well also, and Charles had a good comeback, but he was on the soft and nobody knows about [the performance] of a different compound. But Carlos was on a decent pace on his first stint on medium compared to the others, but we lost the ground completely with the hard [tyres].
“It’s where we have to understand the main issue, and we have some improvements to do, clearly, on the management of different compounds over the weekend.”
And whilst the team did open a margin over their nearest rivals on Saturday at least, Vasseur later admitted that the gap to Red Bull in front “looks huge” from what he was able to assess from the race after the safety car restart, pointing out a figure that paints a picture of the red cars losing over 0.83s per lap to the leading pair of Perez and Verstappen:
“The gap looks huge,” he admitted. “At least on the second stint – the first stint was difficult for us to know because we were never in a position to push – and on the second stint we had the position to push and the gap was huge.
“Because in 30 laps they gave us something like 25 seconds, [so] you can do the conclusion.”
However, Vasseur is still confident that the team can still beat Red Bull in 2023, and urged his squad to stay focused on its own weaknesses and how to improve and mitigate those, and then see where that leaves it:
“I think so,” he said when asked if Red Bull can still be caught in 2023. “We have to continue to push. I think it’s not the right attitude to think about the gap and to say ‘will we be able to close the gap?’. We have to be focused on ourselves.
“We know where we are weak, and we have to improve on this one, and we’ll see what is the outcome when we do a decent step.
“If you start to think about what the future potential and the development could be and so, you are lost in that. We know that we have to improve, and I think it’s the DNA of our sport, it’s not just due to the current situation.
“We know that we have to work and we’ll continue. I’ll be sure that tomorrow morning I will be in the office and push like hell,” he said on Sunday.
When asked if Ferrari’s decision to improve straight-line speed for this season has perhaps cost it too much downforce, Vasseur was clear that the team does not need to go back in its decision, and instead has a range of choice of downforce levels to choose without changing its philosophy:
“[The solution] is not to come back,” he said. “We have a large choice of wings and levels of downforce, but [it’s] always a trade-off. At the beginning of the weekend we decide which kind of wings we want to bring.
“I think we had probably a better top speed than Aston Martin and Mercedes, but probably less downforce than them over the weekend,” he admitted. “[But] I’m not sure that is the main reason for the lack of pace.”
