Vasseur Highlights Ferrari's Comeback Ahead Of 2024 Season

Tuesday, 09 January 2024 at 09:00

Frederic Vasseur admitted leaders of Scuderia Ferrari were not satisfied with the third-place finish during the most recent season but pointed to an upward trend.

Ferrari quickly found out in 2023 that they would not be able to compete for the Championship, and they would have a lot to do to catch up with the leading Red Bull.

After a great start and a terrible end to the 2022 season, Ferrari hoped to fight for the Championship again in 2023, but the F1 team was just too far behind in multiple crucial aspects. According to RacingNews365, Vasseur told the media:

"Nobody can be happy with what we did at the beginning of the season. We had too many issues with reliability, and I was the first one upset with this - and performance."

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On the other hand, the Italian team understood they would not be able to challenge for the title in 2023, so they started focusing on the development of the car for 2024 pretty early and still managed to close the gap towards the end of the season.

Ferrari gained a lot on Red Bull during the last few races of the season, mainly in terms of one-lap performance. Vasseur continued:

"I am not a big fan of statistics, but we had something like five pole positions out of the last eight events, the fact we were able to fight with Max on some occasions during the races also was a good step forward."

Although third place in the Championship is quite a disappointing result for his team, Vasseur pointed to a very positive and strong reaction of his team mid-season which resulted in great improvement.

"Even if we are not happy - and again, I am the first one, I do not need Mr Vigna or Mr Elkann telling me, I am not happy with P3, this is clear - but I am more than happy with the reaction of the team and I think this feeling is the same for everybody."

What many Tifosi now wonder is whether their favorite team can build on the progress they've made in the second half of the 2023 season. Less than two months separates us from finding out during the first race of the season in Bahrain.