A recovering Ferrari takes 4th and 6th place in front of the home crowd. On Imola Sunday, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton showed race pace close to the front runners, but paid the price for recurring weaknesses in qualifying. The Team Principal identifies preparing the new tires as the key to improving Saturday performance, urging the team to devote full attention to it ahead of the delicate Monaco event.
Fast Ferrari, but not the best
“Everything went well,” Fred Vasseur commented in the post-Grand Prix press conference. “I think Charles was a bit unlucky with the timing of the Safety Car, but that’s something we can’t control. In the end, we have to improve qualifying pace because starting further back makes everything more difficult.” The change in pace from Saturday to Sunday increases the Team Principal’s frustration: “It’s clear this has been happening for two or three Grands Prix now. I think the pace today was good, we were probably in line with the leaders considering we had to push hard on the tires at the start. The problem is that yesterday we were much further behind and started 11th and 12th.”
Fred Vasseur nevertheless praised the strategic execution of the race, also explaining the decision to have Charles Leclerc give back the position to Albon after their close encounter at Tamburello: “We were under investigation and clearly at risk. With a 5-second penalty, Charles would have been 10th or 11th. We had the feeling the penalty was likely. That’s why we asked him to give the position back.” The biggest source of optimism remains the pace the SF-25 continues to show over long runs, but the French manager is clear: “I don’t think we have the best car. Even when we’re in good form during the race, we’re not faster than the McLaren cars. Probably close, but not enough.”
Eyes on qualifying
Ferrari’s main current issue is qualifying struggles, now at the top of Fred Vasseur’s agenda: “What’s clear is that in the last 3 or 4 events we have always had better race pace than qualifying. In Jeddah, we were probably the fastest on track on Sunday and three tenths behind on Saturday. I think the same happened this weekend. It’s clear we struggle to get the best out of the car on Saturday. In the last two GPs, we didn’t improve with new tires in qualifying. There’s some frustration, we must focus all our efforts on this.” – the French manager pointed out.
“We’ll probably have to take a different approach for the preparation lap; we can’t extract the potential of the soft tire in qualifying. If you look at FP2, we completed good race simulations with the same setup we struggled with earlier. With mediums, we were competitive but with softs we struggled. I think it’s more down to the compound and tire preparation.”
The Team Principal continues to emphasize the importance of extracting the car’s potential, clarifying a concept he has repeated several times in recent weeks: “I mean we have to understand how to do better with what we have, because with the same cars we manage to be competitive on Sunday. We have to do better with the same car on Saturday. I understand that sometimes due to design characteristics there can be a tenth difference between qualifying and race, but for us it’s three. When you find yourself in this situation, frustration builds, you take more risks with setup and driving, and you enter a negative spiral. We have to stay calm.”
Towards Monte Carlo
No time to rest, as Ferrari must already think about the next race where qualifying performance will be crucial: “Next week in Monaco, by Saturday evening the grid will almost be set. That means we will have to be much more competitive in qualifying.” Fred Vasseur does not hide his concern: “Yes, we are worried. If we don’t do a better job than this weekend, the next race will definitely be much harder. That said, Monaco is a completely different story in terms of preparation, tire management, and so on. We will start from a blank sheet and step by step we will succeed. We understand the problem and will do better in the future.”
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