Fred Vasseur: “Another step needed to consistently put Red Bull under pressure”. Frederic Vasseur reflects on Ferrari's battle with Red Bull and McLaren .

The Miami Grand Prix saw three major teams in the spotlight, namely McLaren, Red Bull, and Ferrari, each with different perspectives on what the weekend brought and meant. The victory of the Woking-based team came thanks to a series of fortunate circumstances, particularly the timely entrance of the Safety Car, but it is undeniable that when given the chance to showcase their pace in clean air, Norris displayed superior pace to his rivals.

For Red Bull, the American leg represented a weekend where they failed to capitalize on the potential of the RB20 as usual, on which they also need to fine-tune, due to the approach of their competitors. Verstappen never found the ideal feeling with the car, neither in qualifying nor in the race, having to deal with damage to the floor when he uprooted the bollard at the chicane.

It is precisely in this context that Ferrari’s weekend fits, which, on the one hand, looks optimistically towards the future, but on the other hand, is also aware that continuous work is needed to close a still existing gap. The Scuderia has not yet brought any update package, which will only arrive at the next appointment in Imola, but in Miami, this aspect weighed only to a certain extent because the fundamental aspect, beyond pure performance, was to find a way to make the tires work at their best.

McLaren confirmed this. After a challenging qualifying with the soft compound, where they never managed to exploit it to the fullest, in the race with two more durable and flexible compounds, such as the medium and the hard, the MCL38 magically found the pace to stretch its legs and fly towards the stage victory. On a circuit like Miami’s, overtaking is not easy, so much so that even the Woking team was quite surprised after the sprint despite opting for a rather low-downforce wing.

For this reason, track position became crucial. While it is true that Oscar Piastri was able to overtake Charles Leclerc in the early stages of the race, the Australian never managed to pull away, with the Monegasque always well anchored behind him.

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“In general, I believe there are three teams that have fought throughout the weekend within two or three tenths, from one lap to another, from one stint to another, or from one tire compound to another,” Frederic Vasseur recounted after the race, emphasizing that he was not surprised at all by McLaren’s competitiveness.

On the other hand, however, the Team Principal of the Prancing Horse also wanted to highlight how the gap from the RB20 is narrowing, pushing Red Bull to dare a little more when it does not have the safety margin of the past. Last year, in Miami, Max Verstappen staged a great comeback, but it is also true that Ferrari and Mercedes at the time clashed with an aerodynamic concept that would be changed in the following GPs. Furthermore, the temperatures recorded last weekend reached almost 50°C regarding the asphalt, being much higher than those of 2023.

These factors, combined with a feeling far from perfect, especially due to annoying understeer in fast corners, also led Red Bull to play defensively in the first stint. From a purely strategic point of view, the choice to call Charles Leclerc back to the pits early was not wrong, but it makes sense in the choice to shuffle the deck, trying to overtake Oscar Piastri first and foremost. Tire wear would not have been a problem: with the hard compound, the entire race could be covered in terms of pure degradation since the only concern was thermal degradation, a different phenomenon. In the few laps covered on fresh rubber, which did not require a particular warm-up phase, the Monegasque began to close the gap even on Verstappen, pushing the rivals to react.

In fact, Red Bull did not need to anticipate the pit stop, but having a “delta” of only 2 seconds before the Virtual Safety Car intervention, the strategists did not want to take risks, calling Max back to the pits to maintain track position, covering off Ferrari. It is clear that, without the subsequent intervention of the safety car for the incident between Magnussen and Sargeant, realistically, Max Verstappen would have had a real chance of bringing home the fifth victory of the season, a fact of which Fred Vasseur himself is aware.

“Honestly, I think Red Bull is still ahead. Probably Max could have won today without the story of the Safety Car. I don’t want to draw any conclusions, but if they did the pole position, it means they still have a slight advantage. What is true is that compared to a year ago, when we manage to do a good job and put everything together, we are there,” explained the head of the Prancing Horse, also emphasizing how important this aspect is to try to put pressure on Red Bull, without forgetting that another step is still needed to do so consistently.

“It means that we are putting a little pressure on Red Bull, that they have to be a little more aggressive with the strategy, that they are no longer in the comfort zone like last year, where no matter what happens, after the second lap they were ahead. This changes the management of the race. It’s an opportunity for us because, if we take another small step forward, I believe we will really be able to fight with them every single weekend.”

A well-considered reasoning by the Frenchman, which also reflects that of Andrea Stella, who was not carried away by easy enthusiasms, emphasizing how Red Bull remains the reference team. The Milton Keynes car manages to make consistency and overall competitiveness its real strengths, fighting at the top on every track encountered so far. However, in certain appointments where the RB20 does not prove to be perfect, the gap can narrow, and it is there, as mentioned by rival teams, that opponents must try to put pressure.

Ferrari started the weekend as one of the most competitive teams in the slow sections, so much so that it recorded one of the most competitive central sectors in the sprint qualifying, almost opposite to the RB20, which instead made the first sector and the medium-to-high-speed corners one of its strengths.

The interesting aspect is that, however, over the course of the weekend, the roles were almost reversed, with the teams working in opposite directions. While Red Bull went in search of performance in the slow sections, the Prancing Horse pushed to find load and speed in the first sector. In the second qualifying, in fact, there was a sort of “leveling,” with much less marked differences compared to the sprint qualifying.

In the race, the SF-24 proved to be the fastest among the top teams in the first sector, more than Red Bull and McLaren, which generally make corners like these a strength. It is no coincidence that Stella admitted how the Woking team sacrificed strengths to compensate for weaknesses in the slow sections. Probably, at Ferrari, the greater suspension stiffness and other small elements made themselves felt over the long distance in the second sector, where indeed it was seen how both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz struggled to find that traction grip to attack rivals, a crucial issue on this track when encountering traffic.

The Italian car closes its first arc of life well, in the upper part of the standings, but it is clear that, as admitted by Frederic Vasseur, now another step is needed. In Miami, the updates played a less impactful role compared to other tracks, highlighting more the teams’ abilities to optimize the package based on certain conditions. But this is a discussion related to the characteristics and conditions of the American track: from Imola, the first major innovations will arrive, to accentuate certain basic concepts of the SF-24 and approach that “global” competitiveness of a Red Bull, which certainly will not stand still.