F1 | Vasseur: “Clear situation. We must push for development”

For a John Elkann who is satisfied with what Ferrari is showing at this start of the season, there is a Frédéric Vasseur who is perhaps more pragmatic and with an eye on the future of the 2024 season which has seen the Ferrari confirm itself as the second force in Formula 1, but still distant from Red Bull although the gap compared to last year has narrowed significantly.

At the end of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the Ferrari team principal spoke to Sky Sport F1 to comment on the weekend of the Maranello team, but also to explain what the path to follow in the coming weeks will be for the ambitions of a team that has returned to playing an important role since the start of 2024.

Vasseur, how do you rate Oliver Bearman's debut race in Formula 1?
“I think Oliver did an excellent race. He had to manage many things, pit stops, start, but everything went smoothly and he did an excellent job. He was also very good at keeping Norris and Hamilton at bay who were coming back on new Soft tyres. He managed to grow further, improving lap after lap. I'm happy for him and for the Ferrari Driver Academy. He really did a great job today.”

Are you satisfied with what Ferrari has shown at the start of the season?
“Overall we have made a good step forward in terms of degradation. But we need to take a step forward in terms of performance. We are 2-3 tenths behind Red Bull in qualifying and we have a bigger delay in race pace, 4-5 tenths As soon as we have a clear track we have a good pace, but it's not enough. We'll have to make another one. But we have to keep in mind that last year in Jeddah we were a second and a half behind the best. Now we're 4-5 tenths away. And 'It's a good step forward, the season is long and we will have other opportunities.”

Seeing the fastest laps of Leclerc and Bearman come the end of the race, weren't you a little too conservative with the tires during the 50 laps?
“We were cautious with the tires because we were forced to return too early after the first stint, around 7-8 laps). At that point we knew we would have to run the Hards for over 40 laps. I think it was the right choice. Norris he did the opposite but it didn't go well. Considering that we did the first laps behind the McLarens with the Hard tyres, we were right to be more conservative.”

What is the main problem you have encountered so far?
“The problem is that currently we are not magical in top speed. We lost the position on Perez at the start of the race for this reason. It was difficult to follow him with dirty air in front. It's a complex combination. When one finds himself in the middle of the things get more complicated and more difficult. We saw many cars that struggled to overtake, Piastri behind Hamilton for example. Red Bull clearly had an advantage and when Perez overtook Charles there was no longer any way to fight with We have a performance gap with them, so we have to push to develop the car.”

In your opinion, will Australia have a clearer picture of the values ​​on the track?
“I think we have already seen two very different tracks in terms of abrasiveness of the asphalt. I think the picture is already quite clear, because here we saw similar results to those of last week. We have made a big step forward compared to the year last year and McLaren did too. This means that we will still have to focus on ourselves to do the best job possible and we hope to already have Carlos with us in the car.”