F1 | Vasseur: “We suffer in T1 due to characteristics. I believe in victory”

Frédéric Vasseur continues to be positive. Despite the fourth and fifth times obtained in qualifying for the Made in Italy and Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the Ferrari team principal looks with optimism to tomorrow’s race and also to the future.

Although Verstappen and the McLarens of Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris are ahead of the Reds, the updates brought to Imola by the Scuderia have delivered what the team expected. There was a correlation between simulations and the track, and this is an important starting point that makes us look to the future with confidence.

Vasseur, at the end of the official tests on the banks of the Santerno, commented on the session to Sky Sport F1 as follows:

Vasseur, how do you rate today’s qualifying?
“From the start of the weekend it was clear that we were in good condition, but Lando and Max are also there and between one session and another we were all very close. If today we exclude the wake that Max took in the last attempt we would be I would have preferred to be 1 tenth ahead of the others than 1 tenth behind, but the fight is close even if Imola is not a track where it is easy to overtake. However, it will be a long race, the race pace was good simulations from yesterday and this is our basis for tomorrow. We will also start with a good trail up to turn 2, then we will see what we can do.”

Ferrari seems to suffer compared to its rivals in the first sector. How do you explain it?
“I think what made us lose something in the first part of the track is one of our characteristics. Max is much faster than anyone else up until Turn 4, while we are faster in the second sector and you can’t fight with the characteristics of the car and the type of development taken. You have to manage what you have in the end we are talking about 1 tenth and in the end we see that after the first sector Max had more than 2 tenths on us, while then in the end of the lap our gap was smaller. So we caught up with him in the next two sectors, considering the route from after the first sector to the end of the lap, we are faster.”

“I don’t know if it’s a problem or a feature, but we have to look carefully because it could be an area for improvement. I repeat, we’re talking about hundredths of a gap, so every little thing we bring can also make a very important difference, even if in reality it’s small. With 1 tenth more speed we would have been on the front row or even on pole.”

Tomorrow it will be difficult to overtake on the track, among other things with a reduced DRS zone…
“The fact that they have reduced the DRS zone certainly won’t help in overtaking. It was already difficult to overtake before and if we have to do it tomorrow we will have to do it either at the start or with the strategy. It means thinking of something different to surprise the others. Then this year there is always the gravel factor in the escape routes. There could be Safety Cars. If we look at the preparatory categories that ran today, there were more laps behind the Safety Car than in the actual race which we must take into account.”

In your opinion, will Ferrari have a chance of winning tomorrow?
“I want to be optimistic and I believe we can be fighting to win. And I think a good message for the team and the fans is that we are there, we are close to the leaders. Tomorrow we will do our best, but then from Monday we will have 17 more races to do, the World Cup is very long.”

Are you happy with the developments you have brought right here in Imola?
“We have developments in preparation for the rest of the season and we know that by bringing updates to Imola the others would also have done the same thing. It doesn’t mean that if you improve 2-3 tenths it can make a big difference. I believe that McLaren has brought a car almost completely new between Miami and this weekend. The same thing is true for Mercedes and Red Bull. We are all developing at an infernal pace and we are almost all at the same speed. The most important thing, however, is to have correlation between the track and the simulations and we are happy, because we have found this correlation. This is also positive from a future perspective. I certainly didn’t expect McLaren and Red Bull to slip backwards while sleeping.”

“The direction taken is the right one, we have made the steps forward we expected. We can trust in the development and work on the weak points of the car, because we have a clearer picture of how it works. So we are ready to develop as we did last year But when we develop, it doesn’t mean that the steps forward are enormous, because the competition also develops in turn.”