Ferrari came close to its end-of-season goal, which was to finish second in the Constructors’ Championship for the 2023 Formula 1 season, despite Charles Leclerc’s outstanding performance. Mercedes beat the Prancing Horse by a couple of points, but there are positive aspects – along with the negatives – to analyze and repeat next season to be ready from the start and try to compete with Red Bull.
Frédéric Vasseur, team principal of the Scuderia in Maranello, has summed up the final conclusions of the long 2023 Formula 1 season, with an eye on the 2024 season, which, barring surprises, will be even more demanding with its 24 events. The French manager, after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, spoke to Sky Sport F1 microphones, touching on several interesting points about the present and future of the Italian team.
Fred Vasseur, Ferrari did everything this weekend to secure second place in the Constructors’ Championship, but it didn’t happen. Leclerc had a great weekend, but Sainz faced several difficulties…
“We also needed Carlos to fight with Mercedes. Without Perez’s penalty, however, we thought it could go better… We tried to push Perez to try to make him increase his advantage over Russell, but it wasn’t enough. Perhaps a couple more laps would have been needed, but that’s how it went. Let’s keep in mind the positive things. We struggled at the beginning and in the middle of the season. We did very well in the last 7, 8 races, and sometimes we even fought with Red Bull. If we look at where we were 5 months ago… They were on another planet. Now things are different.”
At various points in the season, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz had ups and downs. How much did it influence the final result?
“We have to think that our car was not easy to drive. This also creates a certain lack of confidence and self-esteem. Charles struggled at Monza, in Singapore. He struggled at first but then improved. As for Carlos, things went differently, in the sense that he struggled more in the last races, but he had done very well in the previous ones, winning in Singapore.”
“As for Carlos, yesterday he had shown to have a decent pace with medium tires, and today we didn’t see the same thing. It was a shame, but that’s how it went. Today, we were missing something, but I don’t know if it was a car problem. In the last races, we generally did quite well. We fell short in the middle of the season. But it didn’t go as we wanted.”
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To fight and beat Red Bull in 2024, will a revolution be needed?
“We don’t have to overhaul everything in 2024. When you’re 3, 4 tenths behind… I mean, not even Red Bull has a magic wand. They are doing a better job. We lost a lot of points due to reliability, on-track operations, impeding. We shouldn’t focus on just one area.”
“If we found ourselves focusing on doing that, it would be wrong. It won’t be like that. We have a different approach from that; we will try to push every aspect to the limit. Already during this season, we managed to improve a lot in certain aspects; we will have to maintain the same approach in 2024, and we’ll see where we’ll be in Bahrain. We have to stay positive.”
This year was your first year as team principal in Maranello, but you arrived with the car already made. Next year will be your first real year. What will change?
“I don’t want to dwell on the past or the future. Ferrari is not Frederic Vasseur’s team; Ferrari is Ferrari. It’s the work of thousands of people, and we will need to continue pushing. We took a big step forward during the season, and we’ll have to continue at the same pace, with the same rhythm, to develop the car well next year.”
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