Ferrari Will Have To 'Start From Scratch' In China Vasseur Suggests

Saturday, 13 April 2024 at 18:00

Scuderia Ferrari's team principal, Frederic Vasseur, discussed his team's competitive situation after the first four race weekends of the season.

Ferrari has so far been able to maximize points as the second-fastest car on the grid. The team had two 3-4 position finishes in Bahrain and Japan, one 1-2 finish in Australia, and one 3-7 finish in Saudi Arabia (Carlos Sainz was replaced by Ollie Bearman here).

The Italian team has had perfect pit stops, strategies, drivers' performances, and no reliability issues so far. Ferrari has been doing all the right things to stay as close as possible to Red Bull.

Although the team from Maranello would like to challenge Red Bull more often, Fred Vasseur pointed out it is important to consider how big of a step forward his team made compared to 2023.

"We still have weaknesses today. It's always kind of compromise, you improve somewhere and you're losing somewhere else."

Read also

If Ferrari Raises To Top Again, It Won't Be Because Of Hamilton's Arrival Says Boutsen

"But overall, I think that if you compare with Red Bull over the last four events last year and the first four events this year, we made a decent step forward."

After the first four races of the 2023 season, Ferrari had two retirements, one Grand Prix podium finish and one sprint race podium finish.

In 2024, Ferrari had no retirements so far, it has achieved five podiums and one race win. It is clear progress, but the team principal warns that humility is essential. He added:

"It's so tight that I think what is crucial in my business is the humility. This [Japan] weekend you had four teams in one tenth in qualifying."

"It means that you don't have to consider that what you did one weekend will be true the weekend after. We will start from scratch next week. And we have to keep this mindset for all the races."