A two-sided Sunday for Ferrari, celebrating a historic third consecutive win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, only to face a lacklustre Canadian Grand Prix a few hours later. Frederic Vasseur believes Ferrari made far too many mistakes in Montreal, in a Formula 1 where the French manager considers execution now more important than the car package. Nonetheless, updates are on the way, expected to arrive before Silverstone.
The joy of Le Mans
After the Canadian Grand Prix, Frederic Vasseur took a moment to comment on Ferrari’s victory at Le Mans and on a driver he knows very well: “I have a close relationship with Kubica. He spent two years at Alfa Romeo with me and even before that in Formula Renault. For me, he’s an alien. What he’s doing is incredible. Winning Le Mans under these circumstances and being the team’s reference point is something I can’t imagine. When Kimi Raikkonen got Covid at Alfa Romeo, Robert Kubica jumped in the car on Saturday morning at Zandvoort and in that narrow pit lane he could barely turn the wheel and activate the clutch. He had never driven that year’s car, but in the race he battled with Vettel until the final corner. It was incredible.”
“I’m really happy for him,” Fred Vasseur continued. “He’s had a chaotic career, but thinking back to the determination he showed makes me truly happy with the result he achieved today.” The Team Principal also reflected on the reasons behind Ferrari’s differing performances in Grands Prix and endurance races: “I think one of the advantages for the Le Mans team is stability: the same six drivers in the works cars, and Robert [Kubica] always in the other. This consistency, along with the experience of those running the team, is key. I’m proud of Ferrari’s work, with three cars at the top and three consecutive victories. This stability is a strength.”
The weekend controversy
Fred Vasseur’s comments on project continuity link back to the Italian press’s speculation at the start of the weekend about a potential split between the French manager and Ferrari at year-end: “When I signed with Ferrari, I was fully aware that I couldn’t blame anyone but myself and that if I didn’t want to find myself in these situations, I’d be better off staying out of it. But for the 1,500 people in the team, it’s tough to see their names circulated in the press as if this or that person needs to be replaced. These aren’t just job titles—they’re people with families who come into my office every Monday asking if what they read is true.”
“On Friday I mentioned last year’s story about Balbo, when newspapers reported we had signed him. I had to Google him because I didn’t know what he looked like and had never met him. You can imagine how that felt for Diego [Tondi], our head of aerodynamics. He didn’t know whether it was true or not, and all this creates not tension—because that’s not the right word—but entropy or distraction within the team. At the end of the day, we’re competing with other teams and if we’re distracted and not focused on the right things, we’ll lose.”
The race
On the Canadian Grand Prix itself, Lewis Hamilton once again had an underwhelming race, this time due to damage to his SF-25. “We hit a groundhog,” Fred Vasseur confirmed. “It was around lap 8 or 9 of the first stint, and we damaged the entire front section of the floor, losing about 20 points of downforce. Luckily, the balance wasn’t too badly affected, but we lost performance.”
The Team Principal then explained the pit wall’s decision not to attempt a one-stop gamble with Leclerc: “Charles wasn’t happy with the strategy until he had the full picture. I spoke with him after the race and told him he was right that, being at the back of the leading group, we didn’t have much to lose and could have taken a risk. But for us, it would’ve been a bit too optimistic to complete 50 laps on the hard tyre—not because of its performance lifespan, but because of wear. We probably needed a few more laps over the weekend to properly estimate it.”
Overall, the many mistakes made during the weekend wasted the promising potential shown on Saturday: “Sector 1 was our weak point all weekend, but on the final lap of qualifying we set the record there, showing we had the pace. I’m not saying we could’ve taken pole, but at least we were in good form. I think as a group we made too many mistakes, starting with the FP1 crash and ending with the groundhog during the race. In such a tight battle, from one weekend to the next, if you’re not perfect, even tiny things don’t just affect lap time—they change your final position.”
Updates incoming
Looking ahead, Fred Vasseur confirmed the arrival of the long-awaited upgrades to the SF-25: “We’ll have some updates soon, before Silverstone and maybe another one later. These days, though, I believe execution and setup are more important than the car itself. We’re at the end of this regulation cycle, and we all know that when we bring an upgrade we’re talking gains of hundredths of a second, whereas if you don’t get the most out of the car you can lose tenths. That means in a couple of cases, at least for us—though we’re not alone—when we’ve brought updates in the past, it took us a few races to adjust the setup to the new spec. I want to put the emphasis much more on the team and execution than on the car’s pure potential, but we will bring something.”
The Team Principal keeps repeating the mantra that car setup is more important than development: “I don’t think the main problem today was the car’s characteristics, but rather tyre usage. Understanding them and choosing the right compounds for qualifying is quite a difficult task. I think Verstappen and the Mercedes teams did a better job this weekend compared to us and McLaren. They were on top of tyre choices from the start, and that’s something you have to decide as early as Friday morning. You have to piece everything together before the weekend even begins if you want a good result. The performance you can get from the tyres makes a much bigger difference than the gap between the cars themselves.”
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