'What The F***?': Ferrari Team Principal Shares His Reaction After First Three Races Of 2023

Sunday, 17 December 2023 at 15:00

Scuderia Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur remembered his state of mind after the first two races of the 2023 season.

The 2023 season was the first season for Frederic Vasseur with the Italian team - Scuderia Ferrari as he replaced departing team principal Mattia Binotto a few weeks ahead of the season.

It presented quite a huge challenge for the F1 team principal as joining quite late meant he would not have his hands on the development direction of the SF23, but his name would be under the results the car achieved this season.

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The Frenchman remembered people used to tell him, based on their outside observations when going to Ferrari, that the beginning of the season would be great, but then it would go down, like in 2022. He told the media:

"Everybody told me that 'you will see at Ferrari that you start the season very well and then it's going down'"

The first race in Bahrain ended with retirement for Charles Leclerc and fourth place for Carlos Sainz, the second race ended with P7 for Leclerc and P6 for Sainz, and the third place in Australia resulted in another DNF for the Monegasque and P12 for the Spaniard.

"After Jeddah or Melbourne, I said, 'What the f***? If this was the good part of the season, we will be in big trouble.'"

However, even though his team did not start the season the right way, the 55-year-old revealed the perception inside the team was better than he would have expected.

"The perception that you have from an external point of view of Ferrari is probably wrong. When I was outside, I was always thinking that the team would overreact to every single event. But the team was very, very calm after Melbourne. We were cautious of the situation and the weakness of the car."

Ferrari then managed to turn things around. Instead of going down in the second half of the season, it went up and almost snatched second place in the Constructor's Championship from Mercedes.