Despite unexpected hurdles in Bahrain, Ferrari remains confident in its SF-25, with Vasseur assuring progress ahead of Melbourne’s F1 season opener.
Ferrari has not taken a wrong direction with its SF-25, despite some unexpected difficulties during winter testing in Bahrain. That’s the view of Frédéric Vasseur, the Scuderia’s team principal, who remains reassuring.
With an evolved car, notably featuring an entirely new pull-rod front suspension replacing the previous push-rod system, the Italian team struggled to fully exploit its new machine in Sakhir.
“With the suspension change, we have opened a new door for development because, after a few years, it was necessary to introduce some differences,” Vasseur stated. “So far, it is working well—I’m not talking in terms of results but in terms of data. Everything is heading in the right direction.”
The Frenchman avoids making predictions for the season opener while not ruling out a strong performance: “Are we in a position to fight for victory in Melbourne? Honestly, I think it’s too early to say, especially because conditions here in Bahrain were unusually extreme, making it difficult to get a clear picture of the situation.”
“But from one session to another, things change significantly. We have no real sense of the pace. We know the fuel level in our car, we know our engine mode, but we don’t know the others’, making it very difficult to interpret everything.”
“We said the same before coming to Bahrain: we must stay focused on what we are doing, on the new balance, on our data, and not think about the others—then we’ll see how things unfold.”
“We only know our own work, not that of others. You can speculate, you can speculate a lot, but if you look at the first session, if I’m not mistaken, [Max] Verstappen was a second faster than last year; then things changed, so all you can do is speculate.”
“We need to focus on ourselves. The numbers we have match our expectations, and the same goes for the balance—if that’s the case, I trust the team. We have good feelings about the car.”
Vasseur points out that conditions will change completely between Bahrain and Melbourne, meaning car performance will evolve accordingly, leading to a different scenario.
“If we look at the hierarchy in previous years, what we saw here was not the same as in qualifying a week later under similar conditions. We will go from 10-15 degrees on track to 45 degrees later, so in Melbourne, we’ll be ready, and it will be a different story.”
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Ferrari stays on course despite early SF-25 challenges Ferrari stays on course despite early SF-25 challenges Ferrari stays on course despite early SF-25 challenges
