Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur has disclosed the primary focus for his team as they strive to narrow the gap with Red Bull in view of the 2024 Formula 1 championship.
The Maranello outfit concluded this season’s campaign in the third position in the Constructors’ Championship, trailing the dominant Red Bull and the second-placed Mercedes after a close battle with the German side.
Scuderia Ferrari managed to secure just one victory against Red Bull during the 2023 F1 championship, with Carlos Sainz emerging triumphant at the Marina Bay street circuit in Singapore. Despite this success, it was generally a less-than-satisfactory outcome for the Maranello team, especially considering their four race victories last year and their aspirations for a championship challenge for 2023.
Frederic Vasseur has called upon all departments within Ferrari to instill confidence in their respective contributions to the team during the winter break as the Italian side looks to come back stronger next season:
“I think the mistake would be to imagine that Red Bull, they have a magic bullet of five-tenths or that we made a step on something. The performance is coming from everywhere into the company, on the fact that we are able to produce parts quicker, on the fact we have better reliability. We gave up too many points this season for different reasons, for reliability, for disqualification in Austin, for impeding in quali. This is clearly where we have to work.” – the French manager explained in a recent interview for the media – “And we have to improve on aero, on engine, on every single topic. It’s not that we have something wrong and something good, and you fix something and you are making a step of four or five-tenths. The most important thing is that the one thousand people we have in the team are convinced that they are all performance contributors, and they are all trying to push a little bit the limit, even if it’s for one-thousandth of a second, which are enough then to do a huge step.” – the Ferrari boss continued.
Scuderia Ferrari secured podium finishes in four of the last five events this season but ultimately this performance was not enough to defeat rivals Mercedes in the battle for P2 in the standings, trailing the German side by a narrow three-point margin. Fred Vasseur expressed his contentment with the Maranello team’s progress during the year, emphasizing that the gains were achieved by delving deeper into the intricacies of the existing package during the latter part of the championship, rather than relying on introducing upgrades for the SF-23 single-seater:
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“I’m more than pleased because between Zandvoort and [Abu Dhabi], we didn’t change massively the car. We had an upgrade in Japan I think, but basically we kept the same car, and we were able to do a much better job with a better understanding of the car, better set-up of the car and a better approach from the drivers. It means that we have room for improvement everywhere, and this feeling is a good one to develop something for next year.” – Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur concluded.
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