F1 | Vasseur: “We could have done more, but the focus is on the race”

After an excellent day on Friday, expectations were clearly high at Ferrari. It is no mystery that the objective was to fight for pole, so much so that Charles Leclerc himself had not ruled out the possibility of fighting for the very top positions thanks to the best SF-24 of this start to the championship.

On the one hand there was a feeling of confidence, because the car had proven consistent and well balanced throughout the entire lap, especially in the slower and medium speed laps, conveying positive indications about its potential in view of qualifying and the competition. On the other hand, however, there was also the awareness that Red Bull still had something in their pocket, because the Milton Keynes team's Friday had not exactly gone smoothly.

Beyond the problem suffered by Max Verstappen with the floor and the chassis which had led him to miss part of the FP2 session, compromising his work on the long runs, on the other hand the RB20 had not seemed totally at ease on this track, especially in the slower and more tortuous sections. It was clear that fine tuning work was needed during the night to be able to extract something more and, from this point of view, as often happens the Anglo-Austrian team managed to make a clear leap forward.

Even though pole was not achieved, Vasseur still said he was satisfied with what the SF-24 showed over the entire weekend, because it confirmed itself as competitive right from the start.

“It's difficult to explain, it's always a matter of cents, from one lap to the next you go from one hero to another. We must pay attention to this topic and not draw hasty conclusions. Since yesterday we were focused on how to improve the car, how to do a better job, we didn't think about what the result of qualifying could be, because that is not the right approach”, said the Team Principal of the Maranello team.

“There is always more potential to be mined. Carlos' last lap was good, but he made a small mistake, maybe without the mistake we could have fought for something more. The same goes for Charles. Now let's focus on tomorrow. The long runs were good on Friday, tomorrow we have another opportunity to be able to bring home important points. It won't be easy for the tyres, but so far we have shown good consistency and consistency,” added Vasseur, underlining that perhaps something more could be extracted from the car.

In the first three races a certain pattern was seen, namely the difficulty of the Red team in extracting that last segment of performance at the decisive moment, as if it was unable to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. In Bahrain Leclerc had not been able to repeat the time of Q2, in Jeddah he had not made an important leap in terms of timing from the second heat. The same path was repeated here in Australia too, with a competitive SF-24 in the first two parts of qualifying, only to then reach a sort of limit from which it was unable to grow further. Sainz essentially almost repeated his Q2 time, while Leclerc even decided to abort his last attempt.

Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar

Precisely on the aborted lap of the Monegasque, Vasseur believes that in a lap so close to the limit, especially when you try to go further to find that something extra, it is easy to make a mistake: “I think that at that moment there were gusts of wind and when you push to the limit… But since the start of the weekend we have been up front and this is an encouraging element also in view of tomorrow. We will have to manage the tires well.”

Finally, the Team Principal also praised Sainz's performance, especially keeping in mind where he was on Saturday two weeks ago, i.e. in a hospital bed. The Spaniard didn't have time to train thoroughly as he had to recover after surgery but, step by step, he showed that he could extract something more from the car up to today's good second position.

“It's certainly incredible if we think that two weeks ago he was in hospital, but he did very well. After the first free practice session he was thinking about the car, not about the intervention and even with the team we almost forgot about it. But it's incredible if we think that two weeks ago he was in hospital”

“Honestly we had no doubts, but you can imagine how he feels when he gets out of the car, a little tired. But during the meetings he was really focused on performance and I think everything will be fine tomorrow.”