The story of Frederic Vasseur, a fifty-four year old French aeronautical engineer, is marked by passages that are very reminiscent of the career of a young driver. The passion of a boy that takes shape, feeds itself with karting and from there begins a long journey that will lead him, in another form, to Formula 1.
What triggered the first meeting between Fred Vasseur and motorsport was an acquaintance who enjoyed racing with touring cars. “Thanks to this friend of my parents, I began to follow the world of racing” – he recalled many years later – “My first memory of Formula 1 dates back to 1979, I was ten years old and Jacques Laffite fought for the world championship with Jones and Scheckter”.
Obviously he has the desire to get on a kart, but as Fred Vasseur would admit years later “… it didn’t take me long to understand that if I wanted to aim for success in this world, I would never have made it as a driver”.
Choosing to pursue a university career (faculty of aeronautical engineering), he combined the desire to find a path in the world of motorsport with family pressures. To direct it is Vincent Gaillardot, who Fred Vasseur will find years later in Renault Sport and currently team principal of the Nissan F.E.
At the same time, the Frenchman found an opportunity to become a race engineer in Formula Renault in Didier Panissier’s small ASM team, and thus began to attend the first racetracks working on an Orion: “I studied and worked – he recalled years later – two things that were not easy to combine, but Didier and I had great enthusiasm. For two years away we slept in the team truck, but it wasn’t a problem.”
Going forward alone with his team
After a few years, Didier Panissier showed more and more interest in rally raids, in the wake of the great success of the Dakar, and Fred Vasseur decided to go on his own path, becoming the sole owner of the ASM.
A young former kart world champion, Sebastien Philippe (current team principal of ART) arrives in the team and with him the first victories in the French Formula 3 series. It was the beginning of the ascent, and in 1998 the first title in transalpine F3 arrived with David Saelens, who also won the Zandvoort Masters.
A crucial step for Fred Vasseur arrives at the end of 2002. Mercedes has recently made the debut of its F3 engine in the German series, but the Mucke team’s results proved disappointing.
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Starting from the 2003 season, the championship merged with the French series and the Formula 3 Euro Series was born: for Vasseur, the timing for entry was perfect. Mercedes engines arrive, and among the drivers racing for ASM there are Bruno Spengler and Alexander Premat, both managed by a young Toto Wolff. The meeting between Vasseur and the Austrian manager will start a great friendship.
The ART success was created with Nicolas Todt
A year of getting to know the environment, then in 2004 for the ASM team it is already time for success: a one-two finish, with Jamie Green who is crowned champion in front of Premat. 2004 becomes a key step in Fred Vasseur’s professional career, in which a long-held desire takes shape: the leap to a superior category.
The project takes shape with a high-level partner, i.e. Nicolas Todt, Felipe Massa’s manager at the time and intent on a project linked to his talent scout activity. ART (name that will soon replace the ASM) was born from the Vasseur-Todt partnership and the resources for the GP2 program arrived.
It’s a triumphant debut. ART lined up Premat and Nico Rosberg, with the latter becoming champion by leading the team to also secure the team title. 2005 was also confirmed as triumphant in Formula 3, where Fred Vasseur managed to convince McLaren to let Lewis Hamilton race for his team.
After a 2004 to forget, Hamilton is at loggerheads with Ron Dennis and Martin Whitmarsh, and was even excluded from the McLaren Young Driver Programme for a couple of months. Fred Vasseur’s intervention, and the pressure he put on Whitmarsh, made it possible to mend the rift between Hamilton and McLaren, and to start a season in European Formula 3 that would prove to be triumphant: fifteen victories in the twenty races held. It was time for Lewis Hamilton to take over Nico Rosberg’s place in GP2, and in 2006 the title of champion would launch Lewis in Formula 1.
The series of successes transformed ART into the team dreamed of by all young people who aspire to arrive in Formula 1, and the team became a milestone in the careers of many drivers.
In a decade, Fred Vasseur would see about twenty drivers pass through his garage and eventually manage to arrive in Formula 1, an impressive list: Nico Hulkenberg, Sebastian Buemi, Lucas Di Grassi, Sebastian Vettel, Esteban Gutierrez, Kamui Kobayashi, Romain Grosjean, Pastor Maldonado Nico Hulkenberg, Paul di Resta, Jules Bianchi, Sergey Sirotkin, Stoffel Vandoorne, Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Valtteri Bottas, Alexander Rossi, Esteban Ocon, Alexander Albon and Nyck De Vries. Many of these drivers are linked to Formula 1 teams, and this allows Fred Vasseur to build an important network of relationships.
Entering Formula 1 with Renault
In 2010, the Fred Vasseur – Jean Todt tandem evaluated the transition to Formula 1 with the ART team, taking over part of the material from the outgoing Toyota and the supply of the Renault engine, but after lengthy evaluations, the pace was deemed too demanding for the structure: “It was the best decision of my life”, Vasseur would admit years later.
At the end of 2013 he founded Spark Racing Technology, a company that won the contract for the construction of Formula E single-seaters also using close collaboration with external companies, including Dallara, a partnership that still continues today.
At the beginning of 2016 comes the chance to enter Formula 1: Renault offers Vasseur the role of racing director and thus begins his adventure in the sport. Six months later, as part of a restructuring process at the top of the team, Fred Vasseur was promoted to the role of team principal, replacing Cyril Abiteboul. The work base is the historic headquarters of Enstone, in England, and in the evening he is often together with Toto Wolff in the Oxford home of the Mercedes team principal.
It seems like there is solid partnership between Vasseur and Renault, but a few weeks before the start of the 2017 Formula 1 season, news arrives that takes everyone by surprise: “The reason for my resignation is linked to a different vision regarding the management of the team – explains Fred Vasseur – I think it was correct to leave. If there are different visions in a Formula 1 team, the result is that of a slowdown and it is difficult to work as a team.”
For a few months Fred returned to working full time with ART and Spark, then in mid-2017 his return to Formula 1 was announced.
Sauber and the Alfa Romeo partnership
Sauber offers him the position of team principal and CEO of Sauber Motorsport, a role which Fred Vasseur accepts. Among the first choices made is to end the collaboration with Honda, as Sauber had reached an agreement for the supply of the power unit starting from the 2018 season and instead to renew the partnership with Ferrari:
“We didn’t have the ability to design and build the gearbox” – Fred Vasseur would explain later – “And McLaren, which at that time had the transmission for PU Honda, hadn’t maintained good relations with the Japanese manufacturer. In addition, we didn’t want to have an engine just for us, we wouldn’t have had the possibility of a comparison with another team to evaluate the level of our team”.
The extension of the agreement with Ferrari paves the way for the arrival of Alfa Romeo as sponsor and the young rookie Charles Leclerc.
The impact is very positive, given that after just 5 points scored in 2017, Sauber rises to 48 the following season, moving from tenth to eighth place in the Constructors’ standings. In 2019 the team confirmed its eighth position (57 points) with Kimi Raikkonen and Antonio Giovinazzi, a position it will maintain in 2020 but with only 8 points.
Things got worse in 2021, with ninth position in the Constructors’ standings (13 points) but in 2022, thanks above all to a good start to the Formula 1 season, the team climbs to sixth place with 55 points, 49 of which scored by new entry Valtteri Bottas.
Frederic Vasseur loves spending the little free time available between his family (he has been married for over twenty years and has 4 children) and the mountains, a long-standing passion. His professional career is very similar to alpinism, and today he is facing the last peak, not necessarily the most demanding to face but certainly the one that will attract the most attention.
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