F1 | Fred Vasseur: “Happy, but we are all close. The race pace is strong”
Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur keeps his feet firmly on the ground after a promising first day of running in Baku. The Scuderia shows progress on both single-lap pace and race pace, but rivals have yet to reveal their full potential.
Ferrari got off to a strong start on Friday in Baku, with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc topping the timesheets. It was a solid opening day for the team from Maranello, yet caution is key: overconfidence can quickly turn into disappointment if reality strikes.
Fred Vasseur expressed this exact sentiment to Sky Sport F1, remaining careful in his assessment while also showing satisfaction with the team’s work over the first two free practice sessions. As the saying goes, well begun is half done—but the second half still requires full effort, without relying on others’ mistakes.
How did Ferrari’s first day in Baku go?
“Dreaming is never a good thing. We need to focus on what we are doing. The margins are very tight. McLaren didn’t manage to complete a full flying lap, but they were also quick. Probably Mercedes hasn’t fully used their engine, which means that tomorrow’s situation will be similar to this morning: everyone very close. The race simulation is also important—we only did 4-5 laps, but it went very well. We must focus on ourselves and extract the maximum from what we have.”
You had a strong start anyway…
“It was a good Friday, but we don’t know the fuel levels of the others, and we haven’t seen their true potential. The worst thing we could do is think that everything is easy. Nothing is ever easy. We always need to chase the last thousandth, but I am certainly satisfied with today’s progress.”
There might be a surprise in tyre choice for the fastest lap. Some teams tried the Medium, the C5…
“We have seen a couple of times, in Imola and Canada, where C5 and C6 were available, that there has never been a clear choice for qualifying tyres. We did some cross-testing, and I think other teams did too, to better understand what to use tomorrow. In both cases, we have two sets of Mediums.”
Lewis carries more rear wing load than Leclerc…
“We also discussed this at Monza. On high-downforce circuits, you know the setup perfectly. When exploring low downforce, we need to adjust the data, and we did cross-testing to understand which setup is better. We will make a decision this evening.”
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