Friday’s promising signs were completely overturned on Saturday, as Ferrari emerged as the biggest disappointment in the qualifying session for the 2025 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix, which was held at the 5.278-kilometre Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit in Melbourne. Fred Vasseur’s team will start the race from only the fourth row of the grid.
Fred Vasseur reassures the Tifosi ahead of the race
Following the first qualifying session of the year, Fred Vasseur assessed Ferrari’s situation. “I didn’t expect this. We weren’t perfect, but we had the pace, and in Q1 and Q2, we weren’t too far off. In Q3, we lost speed, and now we need to work and push. It’s not the end of the season, just the first qualifying session. The race will be a different story, but yes, compared to yesterday, we didn’t have a good session,” said the Ferrari team principal.
“Overall, we didn’t do a good job in Q3. The gap to the others was bigger than expected, especially when compared to the previous sessions. The seven-tenths deficit at the end came down to not completing a strong lap,” Fred Vasseur added.
“When you start further back, you always prefer a chaotic race, and in that sense, rain could be helpful. But I’m not desperate. Even if it’s a dry race, I’d still be confident. Our race pace was good in free practice, so we’ll see,” concluded the former Alfa Romeo boss.
