For Fred Vasseur, now an adopted Ferrari family member, this will be his first Imola in red. The Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix weekend was preceded by staffing changes (including the change of Charles Leclerc’s race engineer and the official arrival of Loic Serra and Jerome D’Ambrosio) and, above all, the debut of the update package, the first of the SF24 project.
Fred Vasseur tried to temper the (admittedly out-of-scale) expectations regarding the technical innovations, also discussing longer-term plans. He emphasized that Ferrari will not sacrifice anything aiming for 2026; the program will proceed with all planned developments, both this year and in 2025.
How is the work divided between updates for the current car and the 2025 car?
“In terms of percentage, it’s quite difficult to pinpoint an exact number. Part of the team is working on the upcoming updates we’ll see this season, another is already focused on next year’s car. We’ve already started on the 2025 car. Additionally, there’s ongoing work on the 2026 power unit, while for the chassis and aero, we can only hypothesize concepts since there are no regulations yet.
Can you explain Jerome D’Ambrosio’s role?
“Jerome won’t replace anyone; he will be an added value to the team. We will divide various tasks, and he will especially support me. Even though I hope it doesn’t happen, he might sometimes kick me… and I need that. He has great motorsport experience, from management to driving, and will be a good resource for us in the future.”
Why was Charles Leclerc’s race engineer changed, and what led to Bryan Bozzi’s selection?
“Bryan joined the team long before I did! He has worked with Charles for a long time, and they have an excellent technical relationship with mutual respect. I believe Bryan’s transition from performance engineer to race engineer was a natural step, a progression we often see in many teams. We often fight on the edge of a hundredth of a second, and if you feel you can improve something, it’s always better to do it. I’m convinced that Bryan is very good; he has strong technical knowledge and track experience. Plus, he’s well integrated into the team, which will make the transition to his new role very smooth.”
Adrian Newey has said he is not ready for retirement…
“Adrian has a remarkable track record; he is the most successful engineer in the paddock, but I have no comments on this. Honestly, I trust the people we have in our team. Regarding the future… we will know it in the future. I have confidence in our current team members. They are doing a good job. If we compare the potential we have today to a year ago, we’ve made a huge step forward. It’s not enough because Red Bull is still ahead, much less than last year but still ahead, so we must keep pushing.”
Charles said some media expectations about the update package for this weekend might be too high. What can we really expect from this race?
“I don’t know what the media expects, so I can’t say if we will exceed or fall short of their predictions. Since the start of the season, there’s been a gap between us and Red Bull that ranges from zero to five-tenths, depending on the track and conditions. The upgrade can bring an improvement of less than five-tenths, so we might be ahead without the upgrade or behind with it.
“We are developing the car, trying to shave off hundredths, but we must always remember that what happens on track, from setup to weekend conditions and driver performance, is more important than an update. It would be a mistake for me, the team, and the drivers to think that an update is everything. It will certainly help, as we’ve seen in recent races where we fought on the edge of hundredths or thousandths, and in these cases, an upgrade one-tenth faster can turn the weekend around. But we need to stay calm and not imagine that an update determines everything.”
You are still waiting for the technical regulations for the 2026 car, expected to be official by June 1 if there are no delays. Are you satisfied with the discussions in the F1 Commission?
“I’ll preface this by saying I’m not in a hurry for the 2026 regulations, actually. If the FIA had already finalized everything today, probably two or three teams would be ready to set aside this season and the next to focus entirely on 2026, giving them a huge advantage.
“Honestly, I pushed to delay the publication of the technical regulations to October, as during this time, we will still be focused on the final developments of this season and 2025. But we won’t be able to work on aerodynamics before January 1, and I think that’s a good thing because the real problem in terms of resources is aerodynamics. Then there will be those who decide to focus 100% on 2026 from January 1, foregoing upgrades on the 2025 car, but those are decisions that will vary from team to team.”
When did work on the update package for this weekend start? Was it influenced by what was seen in the early part of the season?
“We actually started working on it before the season debut. The cars we see on track in the first race are released by the end of January at the latest, which means work on the first update begins in February. We decided to bring the entire package to Imola because we didn’t want to do it in a sprint weekend like Miami, where managing with just one free practice session is not easy.
“We could have taken a gamble and tried, but in the end, we decided to aim for Imola because we will have FP1, FP2, and FP3 to evaluate everything. In the last two years, we’ve seen that an update might not seem to work as expected initially, only to discover that the two-tenths gain was there but hidden by a two-tenths loss in setup. We shouldn’t consider the gain as immediate; sometimes it takes a while to fine-tune everything, and having three practice sessions helps.”
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