Frédéric Vasseur remains positive. Despite the fourth and fifth positions in qualifying for the Made in Italy and Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the Ferrari team principal looks optimistically at tomorrow’s race and the future.
Although Verstappen and the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are ahead of the Ferraris, the updates brought to Imola by the team have delivered as expected. There has been correlation between simulations and the track, which is an important starting point and brings confidence for the future.
The French manager commented on the session to Sky Sport F1 microphones at the end of the qualifying session for the Emilia Romagna Gran Prix.
Vasseur, how do you judge today’s qualifying?
“From the beginning of the weekend, it was clear that we were in good shape, but so were Lando and Max, and we were all very close between sessions. If we exclude the slipstream that Max got on his last attempt, we would have been within a tenth. I would have preferred to be ahead by a tenth rather than behind by a tenth, but the fight is tight, even though Imola is not an easy track for overtaking. It will be a long race, and the race pace was good in yesterday’s simulations, which is our base for tomorrow. We will also start with a good slipstream up to turn 2, and then we’ll see what we can do.”
Ferrari seems to struggle compared to its rivals in the first sector. How do you explain this?
“I believe what made us lose time in the first part of the track is a characteristic of our car. Max is much faster than anyone else up to turn 4, while we are faster in the second sector, and you can’t fight against the car’s characteristics and the development path taken. You have to manage what you have. But in the end, we are talking about a tenth in one lap. After the first sector, Max had more than two-tenths on us, but by the end of the lap, our gap was smaller. So we recovered in the next two sectors. Considering the path from after the first sector to the end of the lap, we are faster.”
“I don’t know if it’s a problem or a characteristic, but we have to look closely because it could be an area for improvement. Again, we’re talking about hundredths of a second, so every little thing we bring can make a significant difference, even if it seems small. With one-tenth more speed, we would have been on the front row or even on pole.”
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Tomorrow it will be hard to overtake on the track, especially with a reduced DRS zone…
“The reduced DRS zone will certainly not help overtaking. It was already difficult to overtake before, and if we have to do it tomorrow, we will have to do it at the start or with strategy. This means thinking of something different to surprise the others. This year, there is also the factor of gravel in the run-off areas. There could be Safety Cars. If we look at the support races today, there were more laps behind the Safety Car than actual racing laps. These are things we have to consider.”
Do you think Ferrari will have a chance to win tomorrow?
“I want to be optimistic and believe that we can be in the fight to win. And I think a good message for the team and the fans is that we are there, close to the top. Tomorrow we will do our best, but then from Monday, we have 17 more races to go; the championship is very long.”
Are you happy with the developments you brought to Imola?
“We have developments in preparation for the rest of the season, and we knew that bringing updates to Imola, the others would do the same. It doesn’t mean that if you improve by 2-3 tenths, it will make a huge difference. I believe McLaren has brought an almost entirely new car between Miami and this weekend. The same goes for Mercedes and Red Bull. We are all developing at a frantic pace and almost all have the same speed. The most important thing, however, is having correlation between the track and simulations, and we are happy because we found this correlation. This is positive for the future. I certainly didn’t expect McLaren and Red Bull to fall back by sleeping.”
“The direction taken is the right one; we have made the progress we expected. We can rely on development and work on the car’s weaknesses because we have a clearer picture of how it works. So we are ready to develop as we did last year. But when we develop, it doesn’t mean the steps forward are huge because the competition is also developing.”
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