Vasseur the fireman: “Perfect, but it's too early to fight with Red Bull”

by VALERIO BARRETTA

Melbourne, what a Ferrari! But Vasseur curbs his enthusiasm

After a double like this, there's only room to celebrate. There Ferrari, for one day, he won't think about how to catch up with Red Bull, because he has finally beaten them. He did it on reliability over Max Verstappen (KO on the third lap due to a brake problem), but also on pace, if you think about the 56″ given to Sergio Perez. A sign that even for Super Max it would have been difficult to contain the SF-24 at Albert Park.

Vasseur's words

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseurby its nature but also by its role, allows the celebrations but at the same time calms the enthusiasm: “It's really too early to talk about fighting for the world championship with Red Bull. We have made a big step forward compared to last season. We will rebuild the pace from Friday also in Suzuka, but we don't want to reach conclusions today. We must commit ourselves in the same way without thinking we have arrivedcontinuing to focus on our goals“, this is the comment of the Frenchman a Sky Sports F1. “Since the beginning of the season I have been saying that our riders are doing very well and pushing each other to improve session after session. This is part of an emulative process that is necessary within the team. They are also very intelligent on the track, when we asked them to maintain positions, and from the first lap everything was perfect“.

“This year the car is easier to read for us and the drivers, and it is a better basis for developing and improving over the course of the weekend. We are able to be more consistent, unlike last year. It's really too early to come to any conclusions, but we are certainly doing better than 12 months ago. The path is very long ahead of us, we are at the beginning of the season, the fundamental thing is to understand the car and get the best from the package we have“, he continued. I don't know and no one knows if this double would have happened without Verstappen's retirement. If we make a comparison with Perez's pace it seems manageable, but we can't know and it's a completely different situation. We have to enjoy what has happened, we still have 20-21 races to fight with Max. The pace was excellent from the start, I would say one of the cleanest weekends of my last 12 months. From FP1 we found the right pacewe were always in front and very consistent on the long run, and today in the race we did very well“.

“There is still some room for improvement for the next weekends, but this applies to everyone on the grid. We no longer have winter testing, so we need a couple of events to understand the car better. I'd say we did great this weekend, but in the end it will be a completely different situation in Suzuka and we will start from scratch. It doesn't mean that it will be like this every weekend, we must continue to push and develop with this approach without thinking that we have arrived or that everything is done. The team is more than motivated and we will continue to push. The setup of the weekend was right, the balance was right from the first lap on day one, and this makes a huge difference because then we can focus on the details. I think it was clear to everyone that everything went very well, from start to finish. Now let's enjoy this weekend, then we'll see in the future“.