For over twenty-five years active in the motor racing world, Frederic Vasseur has had the opportunity to establish important relationships over time, which have made him highly appreciated in the Formula 1 paddock.
From 1996 to 2015 he was active in junior series, with the creation of the ASM and ART teams where he worked with young drivers and future F1 stars like Romain Grosjean, Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Valtteri Bottas, Esteban Ocon, George Russell and Charles Leclerc, he has been in Formula 1 since 2016. After one year spent at the top of Renault, he moved to Sauber for the following six years and the end of the 2022 Formula 1 championship he secured the best result of his experience in Hinwil, with a sixth place finish in the Constructors’ Standings.
Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc recently called him “particularly honest and direct”, noting the good relationship he had with the French engineer, his first team principal in the year of his Formula 1 debut at Sauber.
The French newspaper L’Equipe has drawn a similar portrait of the next Ferrari team principal: “If there is one thing that will certainly never change, it is his joviality and sociability and the ability to create a cohesive environment around him”. Frederic Vasseur is, to all intents and purposes, the most classic “team man”, who has been able to cultivate strong bonds that still resist today thanks to his ability “to never show off”, despite being a “thirsty entrepreneur”, given that his projects have ranged from Formula Renault to F2 and F3, passing through Blancpain, DTM, simulators and Formula E.
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At the time he worked in the junior series, the Frenchman managed to obtain a partnership with Mercedes, as Norbert Haug recalled: “With a few means he was able to get the most out of his men, and he is a very modest and funny person”. Another friendship cultivated in the racing world was that with Martin Whitmarsh, former McLaren number one, with whom he accompanied Lewis Hamilton’s career towards Formula 1. But not only empathy, because one of Fred Vasseur’s distinctive traits is the “severe lectures” addressed to his drivers, such as the one addressed to Charles Leclerc during a dinner in Baku 2018, ahead of the race in which the Monegasque driver scored his first Formula 1 points.
The French newspaper also wanted to highlight Fred Vasseur’s qualities of negotiator, a manager capable of “recovering Maldonado’s sponsor’s money by personally going to Venezuela” at the time of Renault, as well as for the signing of the Singha beer sponsor “snatched from Red Bull” on a trip to Thailand where he is now “welcomed as a hero” by the founder of the brand. Finally, Fred Vasseur played a key role in the arrival of the title sponsor Alfa Romeo and Ferrari engines at Sauber thanks to his “close relationship with Sergio Marchionne”, for an agreement that “helped get Sauber back on its feet”.
Now the arrival in Maranello, also thanks to the good relationship with Carlos Tavares, CEO of the Stellantis Group and with president John Elkann, as pointed out by various sources in recent weeks.
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