Fred Vasseur explains the attitude and strategy Ferrari will need to adopt in 2024 to try to get closer to Red Bull and compete with them to win races and, if possible, titles.
Frédéric Vasseur has just completed his first season as the team principal of the Ferrari Formula 1 team, inheriting from the previous management a car considered difficult to understand by Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
The third place in the Constructors’ Championship – although the second was narrowly missed by a few points – reflects the difficulties faced by the Maranello team. However, the season did not follow a single track because, from late summer, the SF-23s improved significantly, recovering almost all of the 70-point gap that separated the Scuderia from Mercedes and clinching victory at the Singapore Grand Prix. This means that Ferrari was the only team, aside from the dominant Red Bull Racing, to win a race.
The path to consistently winning again and putting pressure on Red Bull is still long and challenging.
Frederic Vasseur is aware of this, and for this reason, he spoke about what the team needs to do to be ready for the next Formula One season. No (yet another) revolution: they will have to push on the details to push them to the limit where things have already improved, but also plug the gaps where they are still open to try to catch up with the Milton Keynes team.
“We don’t have to overhaul everything in 2024. When you’re 3, 4 tenths behind… I mean, not even Red Bull has a magic wand. They are doing a better job. We lost a lot of points due to reliability, on-track operations, impeding. We shouldn’t focus only on one area.”
“If we found ourselves focusing on that, it would be wrong. It won’t be like that. We have a different approach from that; we will try to push every aspect to the limit. Already this season, we managed to improve a lot in certain aspects; we will have to maintain the same approach in 2024 and see where we stand in Bahrain. We have to stay positive.”
“We will certainly analyze the season, and there is a lot of room for improvement in many areas, many departments. We will try to do a better job next year, but it’s part of the DNA of a racing team. I am confident that next year we will be even more motivated, and that’s why I am confident of closing with a good result, providing a good foundation for 2024.”
Not the results of 2023 but the dynamics of the work. This has convinced Fred Vasseur, pushing him to ask for the same commitment, the same dynamics used this season. The French manager is convinced that it is the right path, and that’s where he will continue to push his team in 2024.
“I will ask the team to continue with the same dynamics, if we don’t want to talk about results. The most important thing is to have this kind of attitude even in difficult times. That’s how it went this year even when we were in trouble, and that’s what allowed us to improve things throughout the season,” concluded Fred Vasseur.
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