Fred Vasseur defends Loic Serra: “The SF-25 was already finalized when he arrived”. Ferrari's Fred Vasseur defends Loic Serra, saying the SF-25 was nearly complete before Serra joined.

The question is not new in motorsport, nor in Maranello. Can a technical staff be expected to produce a winning project after the same people have just come off a failure? The negative wave that has so far followed the first part of the SF-25’s season has not only created a significant gap in the overall standings.

When things go wrong, the media wave begins with analysis and soon shifts to the people behind the project. Yesterday in Imola, Frederic Vasseur was asked whether there is full confidence in the technical staff working on the 2026 project, and the Ferrari team principal clarified the position of the Scuderia’s technical director, Loic Serra.

“When Loic arrived in Maranello six months ago, the current car was already 90 percent defined, let’s say. Then, of course, it depends on the individual components, but the decisions behind the project had already been made. I mean the weight distribution, the wheelbase, the general concept, and so on. This is something that applies to all teams when technical management changes.” – the Frenchman explained.

The message is clear: when Loic Serra arrived in Maranello, he inherited the foundations laid by the previous technical director, Enrico Cardile. All true— Fred Vasseur’s reading of the situation is that the SF-25 is not Loic Serra’s project, but the same holds for Enrico Cardile, who left Maranello last July 8. In effect, the current car has no “father”—if by parent we mean a technical director responsible for the project.

“In any case, 95% of the team is the same one that worked on the 2023, 24 and 25 projects, and I’m convinced that creating a project with issues doesn’t mean the structure isn’t working. I have great confidence in our working group; we know we have to improve, but that’s a constant in motorsport. Even if you’re leading, you know you have to keep improving, otherwise you’ll be vulnerable to your rivals’ attacks. As for this year, we probably made some mistakes with the car, we need to do a better job, but the motivation is there, the mindset is there, and I’m sure we just need to keep growing, identifying and solving the problems.”

Fred Vasseur doesn’t want to hear about shelving the SF-25 project and remains convinced that beyond the development plan (which currently aims to introduce significant updates during the Spanish Grand Prix weekend), the team has yet to fully exploit what it already has.

“We often find ourselves at the end of race weekends with the feeling that we haven’t extracted the maximum from the car, and as long as we have that feeling, I can’t say I know the exact potential of the project. That’s why I believe there are still signs of improvement to come.”