Fred Vasseur highlights Ferrari’s broad advancements, marking a crucial reduction in the gap to Red Bull, energizing the team’s competitive spirit.
Halving its deficit to Red Bull from last season at the Saudi Arabian GP, Fred Vasseur states it’s “clear” Red Bull retains an advantage, yet Ferrari is effectively closing the gap.
Joining Max Verstappen on the front row at Jeddah, Charles Leclerc may have lost a position to Sergio Perez during the race, but this still marks a significant improvement from last year’s performance.
Tire issues and a lack of race pace saw both Ferraris finishing sixth and seventh in 2023, with Sainz ahead of Leclerc, both drivers trailing the leading Red Bull by over 35 seconds.
This gap was halved this year (as in Bahrain), with Leclerc crossing the finish line 18 seconds after Max Verstappen.
Vasseur credits this to Ferrari’s overall progress with this year’s SF-24.
“It’s never easy to have a clear idea of in-race performance since you don’t know when the guys are pushing. But if you compare to what happened a year ago, at plus or minus two tenths, we were 1.1 seconds off, and now we were at four, five, six tenths of a difference.”
“Now, performance comes from everywhere. It’s never one thing that adds five tenths to the car.”
“If we want to catch up, we need to improve in every area. That was our approach, and it paid off well.”
“We’ve made decent progress in all areas and must continue to push.”
“We have improvements in production, like everyone, I’m sure, but the most important thing is not just to bring an improvement but to make an improvement that you can make work on the car.”
The team principal revealed Ferrari would continue to push the car’s development, stating it’s something they’d do even if they were on the top step of the podium.
“If we manage to keep up the same pace of improvement as last year, that will be encouraging.”
“I’m focused on the team and on developing the car, and even if we’re ahead of Red Bull one weekend, we’ll keep the same approach and try to do a better job the next week.”
“It’s not because we’re 1st, 2nd, or 3rd that we stop or evolve further. We’re all in and will continue with the same approach.”
“We are fully focused on catching up; it’s clear they have an advantage over us, and we must continue to develop and push this SF-24.”
“Nevertheless, I note that this is a clear step forward in Jeddah, there was already a good sign last week in Bahrain, but it was even clearer this time. And it’s very encouraging for everyone, it’s the best way to motivate the troops.”
Ferrari Closes Gap on Red Bull: A Promising Shift. 2024 Ferrari Closes Gap on Red Bull: A Promising Shift
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