Fred Vasseur confident “Red Bull won’t have such a big gap as last year”

First round Max Verstappen – Charles Leclerc, George Russell ready to take advantage
Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc will start on the front row today at the Sakhir circuit when the Bahrain Grand Prix kicks off, marking the first act of the 2024 Formula 1 championship. Scuderia Ferrari, with Charles Leclerc at the wheel, missed out on the pole position in yesterday’s Qualifying and aims to demonstrate that they have definitively addressed the issues related to tire degradation that made the beginning of the 2023 Formula One season quite challenging.

On paper, the SF-24 might face some challenges in the first stint with the soft tires before improving its competitiveness with the switch to harder compounds. The storyline emerging from tests and free practice suggests that Max Verstappen still seems to have a slight edge over his rivals in the race. George Russell has even speculated that in the race, Red Bull will be half a second per lap faster than Mercedes. Max Verstappen does not share the same opinion, and according to Ferrari’s team principal, Frederic Vasseur, Red Bull, at least at this moment, does not have the invincible aura it had last year.

“As we’ve been saying since the beginning of this weekend, it’s very difficult to interpret the winter tests, and we are still completely in the dark about fuel levels. From what we’ve seen, it seems that this year Red Bull won’t have the margin it had last year, and perhaps more teams could put them under pressure when making specific strategic or setup decisions. For the race, we will focus primarily on ourselves: we need to verify that the car is more consistent in tire management, as it seems so far, and we’ll see what we can achieve. The first goal is not to leave any points on the table,” Fred Vasseur’s comments ahead of the first race of the season, the Bahrain Grand Prix.