A troubled start in F1 at Renault
It should have been a match made in heaven, but Vasseur and managing director Cyril Abiteboul fell out and one of them had to go. It proved to be Vasseur, who departed Enstone at the end of the season. It was hard to imagine that this would be the last that F1 would see of the talented, focussed and likeable Vasseur - and sure enough, he was soon back in the paddock in 2017 as managing director and CEO of Sauber Motorsport, and team principal of its F1 squad. One of his first decisions to was to cancel the engine partnership with Honda agreed by his predecessor.
When Sauber subsequently began its deal to run a team under the Alfa Romeo marque, Vasseur remained part of the package. His tenure at Hinwil allowed him to learn how F1 works and where it differs from the junior series he was used to up to now, while establishing the personal contacts and connections of anyone aspiring to be a major mover and shaker in the sport. "It's not the same thing to lead an F1 team and an F2 or GP3 structure," he explained. "The size is not the same, nor the relationships with people but the approach to winning remains the same, regardless."
Alfa's sponsorship deal investment in the struggling Sauber team allowed Vasseur to implement a strategy over several years with a focus on recruitment, which has helped the squad regain their midfield status as a team in 2022. "Understanding what you're doing matters a lot," he said. "When you understand the work of people, it is then easier to place the right people in the right positions."
It also brought the former Renault man into the orbit of Ferrari, Alfa's parent company which provided the team with customer engines and an extensive technical partnership. It also saw him get to know Ferrari junior driver Charles Leclerc who had raced for ART in karting: it was Vasseur that gave the Monegasque his big break in F1 in 2018, and he was duly rewarded for his decision when Leclerc scored points for the team in ten of that year's 21 races.
In fact, Leclerc had succeeded so well that he was immediately snatched away by Ferrari to race for the Ferrari team alongside Sebastian Vettel in 2019. However he and Vasseur have remained close ever since. Indeed it's rumoured that when Leclerc grew frustrated with the problems at Ferrari this year and started contemplating moving elsewhere, Ferrari were keen to bring in Vasseur in part to help cement Leclerc's loyalty to Maranello.
"I can only comment on my experiences with Fred, which have been good," Leclerc commented when the rumours began. "I worked with Fred since the junior categories, where he has believed in me. We always had a good relationship. But apart from that, this should not influence any decisions."
Vasseur was probably already aware that his time at Sauber was nearing the end, with the team terminating its deal with Alfa Romeo and announcing a new partnership with Audi for 2026. The German manufacturer would doubtless want its own man in charge (which turned out to be McLaren's Andreas Seidl), and Vasseur saw the writing on the wall and was open to suitable offers should they come his way.
