“The step forward is there, but it’s not visible”: Fred Vasseur’s cautious optimism after Bahrain Practice. Fred Vasseur's cautious optimism after Bahrain Practice.

The signals coming from Ferrari’s Free Practice sessions in Bahrain don’t seem too encouraging. The red car appears to be in the mix with Mercedes and Red Bull (or rather, Max Verstappen), but McLaren still seems out of reach. Yet, Fred Vasseur shows cautious optimism about the work done, even if it hasn’t yet translated into results on track.

In FP1, Ferrari had to do without Charles Leclerc, replaced by Dino Beganovic, while Lewis Hamilton was regularly on track. Unfortunately, though, this session revealed little to nothing about Ferrari’s position or that of its rivals.

This was due to a still very dirty track and high temperatures, resulting in a lack of grip. The first real benchmarks came in FP2, with the Monegasque driver back behind the wheel and the track slightly cooler than in the morning.

During the session, McLaren was a concern—both in qualifying simulations and in the long run, it appeared to be clearly superior to everyone. Ferrari, on the other hand, despite a new floor already planned after February testing, continues to struggle.

At the moment, it seems that this first update cannot bridge the gap with the papaya team, and perhaps not even place Ferrari clearly ahead of Mercedes and Red Bull. In short, at least on this track, the gap with McLaren seems unbridgeable, as Fred Vasseur also confirmed.

“Today it was about putting everything together”

“Yes, half a second is a lot,” said the Frenchman to Sky Sport Italia. “It’s clear they’ve made a step forward (McLaren), but the conditions certainly played a role. In Japan they made some mistakes, so Max (Verstappen) ended up ahead, and we were also in front in China during the Sprint.”

“But today in terms of potential, they have a 2-3 tenths advantage depending on the conditions. We have to live with this situation for now, trying to do our best, first of all by avoiding mistakes,” the team principal continued.

“Lewis did a nice lap up to Turn 11, he was only a tenth slower than Piastri, but then couldn’t finish the lap well. The conditions are a bit extreme and you have to put the whole lap together without making errors.”

He doesn’t hide the gap with McLaren, but Fred Vasseur still said he was pleased to have seen everything they expected from this update. “We have a good read on the car’s load and it’s positive that we got what we expected this weekend,” he commented.

“It’s not clear in terms of lap time, but today it was more about putting everything together in the lap than the potential itself. We’re talking about a small step in terms of aerodynamic load, and due to the conditions, when you overheat the tires you already lose most of what you gain through the load.”