Fred Vasseur Satisfied With Ferrari’s Progress Despite Considerable Max Verstappen Gap

Ferrari showed promise during practice and qualifying in Bahrain, but once the race started, Red Bull seemed unbeatable. Max Verstappen won the race by more than 20 seconds, followed by a P2 finish for Sergio Perez. Despite this huge gap to the Red Bull drivers, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur is happy with the progress they’ve shown over the winter break.

Ferrari finished P3 last year after making a slow start to the campaign. Despite their best efforts, getting the better of Mercedes wasn’t possible in the end. They entered the 2024 campaign with one goal in mind- to start winning races. F1Maximaal.nl quoted Vasseur, “The first race of the season confirmed that we have been working in the right direction during the winter.” 

The Ferrari boss highlighted that at least on a single-lap pace, the SF-24 was closer to the Red Bull than Ferrari had been throughout the 2023 season. Winning races still seems very far away. However, the progress they made shows that if they keep working on developing the car, they could be there by the end of the season. Of course, winning a championship remains Fred Vasseur’s main goal. But toppling Red Bull at the moment seems like a near-impossible task.

️| Fred Vasseur:

“I don’t want to blame anyone. But last year certain choices were made [with the car].”

“From the first km in Fiorano, and testing in Bahrain, we understood they weren’t working.”

“Some negative effects on car behaviour were underestimated by the simulator.” pic.twitter.com/qms6FtqZwf

— Ferrari News (@FanaticsFerrari) June 28, 2023

As for the Ferrari drivers, Carlos Sainz had a much better outing in Bahrain compared to Charles Leclerc. The Spaniard drove a brilliant race to finish P3, one position ahead of Leclerc. Leclerc, however, was struggling with braking issues throughout which meant that he couldn’t perform at an optimal level.

Ferrari hoping to move past Bahrain issues in Saudi Arabia

In qualifying, it looked as though Leclerc was capable of challenging Verstappen for the win. Unfortunately, that didn’t transpire into the race, not just because of Leclerc’s mechanical issue but because the RB20 was just superior on the day.

The gap, however, would have been much lesser if Leclerc hadn’t suffered the breaking issues. Sainz too, with his attacking prowess, could put a lot more pressure on the Red Bull drivers in a better car.

Speaking after the Bahrain GP, Leclerc said (as quoted by PlanetF1.com), “It wasn’t a small issue. It felt really bad, so I had to change a lot the way I was driving, and I had to sacrifice a lot of braking points.” 

Not the Bahrain GP we wanted for @Charles_Leclerc, stilla we took some good points away from the weekend #BahrainGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/Ow5MZRFDfF

— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) March 2, 2024

That being said, the Jeddah Corniche circuit poses a completely different challenge to that of Bahrain’s Sakhir International Circuit. With a smoother asphalt and much higher ambient temperatures, Ferrari feels their car can be much better in the long run.