Vasseur Finds Positives In Ferrari's 2023 Season

Friday, 29 December 2023 at 23:00

Scuderia Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur evaluated the 2023 season in which Ferrari finished third in the Constructors' Championship.

Ferrari's expectations and hopes to fight for the Championship in 2023 were quickly shattered after the first race of the season in Bahrain, and the team has been fighting to eliminate their lack of pace ever since.

The Italian team did not have the strongest first half of the season but improved a lot compared to its rivals during the second half. Frederic Vasseur told the media:

"We had different momentum during the season. It is true that Carlos was very, very strong after the summer break, and Charles was flying in the last six or seven events, but I think overall the evolution that we had in the team was a good one."

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Carlos Sainz was the only non-Red Bull driver to win a race in 2023. Rather than focusing on his most recent performance in Abu Dhabi, Vasseur pointed to his best races of the season.

"We don't have to keep in mind races like [Abu Dhabi] for Carlos, he won in Singapore, was on pole in Monza."

While Red Bull has been dominant throughout the whole season, the four teams behind them exchanged their positions multiple times.

Aston Martin was the best of the rest initially but then fell back. McLaren had the opposite trajectory to Aston Martin, and Mercedes was up and down throughout the whole season, depending on the circuit.

"All throughout the season, it was true that for every single team, except Max, everybody has been down during the season, and it's been very tight."

Sauber's technical director recently stated the F1 grid in 2023 was immensely close, and that means the smallest mistake could set every single driver a couple of positions back.

Similarly, small improvements in the car's performance can result in great progress compared to others, and Vasseur believes Ferrari has to stick to its approach.

"Sometimes, because you like the track or your set-up of the car likes the track, you can move from Row 3 to P10 and it is a disaster, but it means we have to stick to our approach."