F1’s Hungarian GP: Vasseur Lauds McLaren Ferrari

Vasseur applauds McLaren’s stellar performance in Budapest, while reviewing the challenging race faced by Ferrari.

Frédéric Vasseur commended the McLaren F1 team for their one-two finish in Budapest before discussing Ferrari and its drivers, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, who finished fourth and sixth at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

“Honestly, it was a good race. Kudos to Oscar and McLaren and to F1, because it was a great show and it’s nice to have a new winner,” the Frenchman stated, who was full of praise for the current season.

“It’s another excellent Grand Prix weekend that served as great publicity for Formula 1. We’ve had seven different winners; it’s the most beautiful championship in years, and it remains open whereas last year Red Bull was almost the champion.”

“From our side, we had a fine battle with Mercedes and Red Bull. We made the most of our package this weekend. We’ve taken a good step forward in terms of the car’s drivability, but now we need to improve performance to close the two to three-tenths gap with McLaren.”

“Last year, we finished a minute behind Max, this year we’re closer. McLaren is ahead, and we need to progress; we must continue to develop, but it’s a superb championship and I love this season.”

The hierarchy “changes from one weekend to the next.”

The Frenchman explained that the team hoped, as Red Bull also acknowledged, to gain performance through fresher tires: “If you have the same tire age, you can’t overtake.”

“You either have to try the undercut or extend your stint to have fresher tires. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t, but we made good decisions. We had the same pace as Mercedes and Red Bull, but we were two or three-tenths slower than McLaren. That was the maximum we could do from where we started, so it was good.”

“It’s so tight, Mercedes was eight-tenths faster than us at Silverstone, yesterday they were slower. It changes from one weekend to the next as the track or the compounds suit one car better than another. We’ll have this until the end of the year. The most important thing for teams is to score even when things go badly.”

“When starting fifth and sixth, you need to score points and not end up in a heap. I think we maximized what we could from where we started. We maximized our pace throughout the race even though we didn’t finish on the podium. In hindsight, the hards were better than the mediums but I’m not a fortune teller.”

Now, Scuderia turns towards Belgium, the last race before the summer break: “At Spa, we expect something closer to Silverstone, but we’ve made a good step forward in driving comfort for the drivers, so at Spa it should work.”

“We all deserve the break, this first part of the season was intense and everyone is a bit exhausted. But the races are so interesting and the championship so competitive that we are still in the fight!”