Fred Vasseur rejects qualifying issues for Ferrari: “From Austin to Melbourne 8 consecutive front rows”. Frederic Vasseur emphasized the excellent track record before the Japanese GP.

Two opportunities in China to make progress

“Every Formula 1 car has in its DNA the previous decade,” Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur had said last summer. Recently, the Ferrari single-seaters have often been seen as ‘Qualifying cars’, losing ground in the race due to suboptimal tire management, but the SF-24 has definitively corrected this major flaw, as demonstrated by Charles Leclerc’s stint yesterday at the 5.807-kilometre Suzuka International Racing Course on medium tires and Carlos Sainz’s final stint on hard tires.

Isolating the Japanese Grand Prix and reducing Ferrari’s growth simply to the SF-24 improving in the race but losing in Qualifying is a simplistic and unfounded thesis, to say the least. Fred Vasseur, in fact, emphasized in a press conference that Ferrari’s track record on Saturdays has been top-notch before last Saturday: “We must remember that from Austin to Australia, we’ve been on the front row eight times in a row.” – the French manager pointed out. In 2024, the SF-24 indeed secured the front row in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Australia, highlighting some difficulty in lowering the lap time between Q2 and Q3.

Charles Leclerc emphasized that ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, he will work with his engineers on analyzing the preparation lap because the Monegasque has always excelled on a flying lap, a single lap performance that was lacking both at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne and last weekend at the Suzuka circuit in Japan, compromising the Grand Prix afterward. There are two Sprint weekends on the horizon, and there will be no shortage of opportunities for the men in red to test themselves in single-lap performance: “Next time in China, we will have two qualifying sessions, which means two opportunities to do a good job.” – the Ferrari team principal concluded.

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