Ferrari, a scorching Miami
In Miami, Ferrari made headlines for all the wrong reasons. The team suffered embarrassing moments in qualifying, especially before the Sprint (with Charles Leclerc’s incident), and also in the GP, finishing with a seventh and eighth position, adding to the drama with fiery team radio exchanges from Lewis Hamilton against the team.
However, team principal Frederic Vasseur remains calm, and with statements that are sure to spark debate among fans, he believes the SF-25 showed podium-level pace in Miami.
Fred Vasseur’s words
“I think McLaren was on another planet today, they were 30 seconds ahead of everyone. Max pushed at the beginning to stay with them, but he completely ruined his tires. I believe our pace was quite comparable to Red Bull and Mercedes,” he commented to Sky Sport F1 – “I still believe there’s something to unlock in this car. I don’t feel we found the best possible balance for the entire weekend. Yesterday we struggled with the new compound, for the first time in two years we did our best qualifying lap on used tires, and that creates some frustration. In the end, we need to keep working to fix one problem at a time, to become stronger. But it’s pretty clear that today we were very far from McLaren.”
The Frenchman confirmed the upcoming updates for future races, hoping they will improve performance. But for Fred Vasseur, the issue remains unlocking the car’s full potential: “There will be updates for Imola, but it’s not just about development. It’s about finding the best compromise with this car. We definitely have a small step planned for Imola, then another one for Barcelona, but the most important thing is to put everything together. Imola will likely suit us better than Miami, because we struggle a lot in low-speed corners. Returning to this weekend, I think it was more of a tire management issue, trying to get the best out of them, rather than pure car characteristics. In some cases, in some weekends, we can extract much more from the tires than we did this weekend, and that’s where the performance comes from.” – the Ferrari team principal concluded.
