Vasseur Sees Hamilton As 'Good Asset' For Outperforming Rivals In Small Details

Sunday, 15 December 2024 at 12:00

Frederic Vasseur explained to the media in Abu Dhabi why he thinks Lewis Hamilton's experience will make Ferrari a better F1 team.

On December 13th, Lewis Hamilton officially said his final farewell to the last group of Mercedes staff at factories in Brackley and Brixworth.

The seven-time world champion will now go on holiday before officially joining Scuderia Ferrari at the start of 2025. Many experts, like former F1 driver Lucas di Grassi, suggested that taking the seven-time World Champion was not the right move for the Italian team.

The team principal of the team from Maranello, Fred Vasseur, remains confident in his and John Elkann's (Ferrari president) decision, and he explained to the media at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi why:

"I am convinced that Lewis will come with his own experience, with the background of 18 years in F1, with a couple of titles and so it will be a real push to keep this mindset, to try to do a bit better everywhere."

"I perfectly remember with Lewis in 2005-06 that he was already like this, pushing on the small details."

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Vasseur knows the seven-time World Champion very well, as he has been his team principal in Formula 3 and GP2 (now known as F2).

Not only have the two worked together previously, they actually won F3 and F2 in two consecutive seasons, which is an incredible feat. The 56-year-old added:

"At the end of the day, if you have a look, I think that on average the delta between McLaren and us in qualifying was a couple of hundredths, and we are really at this stage, also with Red Bull and Mercedes, that we are speaking about details."

"We really need to have this kind of mindset to chase the last one-thousandth in every single area and I think Lewis will be a good asset for this also."