Fred Vasseur preaches calm
Despite the Bahrain track providing the first significant indications of the initial 2025 World Championship hierarchy, with a McLaren that seems to be the reference car at least in race pace, Frederic Vasseur has enough experience to know that the ongoing Bahrain tests are only indicative to a certain extent. The Ferrari team principal remains calm, simply because the rivals’ work programs are unknown: the Frenchman trusts his own work, the drivers, and the entire team, heading to Melbourne with great confidence.
Fred Vasseur’s words
“Are we in the fight for victory in Melbourne? Honestly, I think it’s still too early to say, especially because the conditions here in Bahrain were so extreme for once that it becomes difficult to get a clear picture of the situation. However, from session to session, things change a lot. We don’t know the fuel levels of others, so it’s very difficult to interpret everything,” said Fred Vasseur in a press conference. “We said the same thing before coming to Bahrain: we must stay focused on what we are doing, on the new balance, on our numbers, and not think about others—then we’ll see how it goes.”
“If we look at the hierarchy from previous years, what we’ve seen here was not the same as in qualifying a week later, under the same conditions. We will go from 10-15 degrees on track to the 45 we will have later, so in Melbourne, we will be ready, and it will be a completely different story,” he added. “With the suspension changes, we have opened a new door for development because after a couple of years, something needed to be differentiated, and I think everyone has done that. So far, it’s working well—I’m not talking in terms of results but in terms of numbers. Everything is going in the right direction.” – The French manager pointed out.
When asked about Lewis Hamilton’s inconsistent pace, Fred Vasseur responded confidently: “Honestly, he did a good job, but as I said, we only know our own work, not what others are doing. There’s speculation, many theories, but if we look at the first session, if I’m not mistaken, Max Verstappen was a second faster than last year; then things changed, so it’s all just speculation. We need to focus on ourselves. The numbers we recorded are what we expected, and the same goes for the balance—if that’s the case, I trust the team, and we have good feelings about the car.”
