Fred Vasseur stopped short of calling Ferrari’s 2024 car a “revolution”, but the Scuderia boss nevertheless revealed that 95 per cent of the components from this year’s car are being changed on next year’s design.
This season, Ferrari’s aspirations for a title challenge were hampered by the inconsistent performance of its SF-23 machine.
However, solid progress in the back-half of the season allowed the Italian outfit to secure a resounding win in Singapore, courtesy of Carlos Sainz whose flawless drive at Marina Bay thwarted Red Bull’s plan of achieving a historic clean sweep and one hundred per cent win record.
But overall, Ferrari was pipped to the runner-up spot in F1’s Constructors’ Championship by Mercedes.
Speaking to selected members of the media in Maranello last week, Vasseur admitted to enduring a difficult baptism of fire with Ferrari early in 2023.
“One year ago was quite a challenge because I joined quite late,” the Frenchman said. “It was a huge wave of things to manage, to understand and to discover in a couple of weeks.
“It was four weeks before the launch and five or six weeks before the Bahrain race [when I joined].
©Ferrari
“But now I think it’s a much more comfortable situation. I know almost everybody in the company, the system, I have a better understanding of this. I think I'm doing a good job, a better job than last year, let's say.
“We need to keep the momentum and I think that even if the last part of the season went pretty well. It's never enough and we don't have to stop this.”
Ferrari’s 2023 campaign had kicked off on a low-key note, with no podiums for its drivers in the first three events of the year.
“Everybody told me that 'you will see at Ferrari that you start the season very well and then it's going down',” remembered Vasseur.
“And trust me, after Jeddah or Melbourne, I said 'what the f***? If this was the good part of the season, we will be in big trouble'.
“The perception that you have from an external point of view of Ferrari is probably wrong.
“When I was outside, I was always thinking that the team would overreact to every single event.
“But the team was very, very calm after Melbourne. We were cautious of the situation and the weakness of the car.”
©Ferrari
In an effort to regain its footing and chase down Red Bull, Ferrari initiated a development programme that saw its SF-23 undergo a mid-season concept change towards the downwash solution pioneered by the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
However, the team remained somewhat constrained by the launch-spec architecture of its car.
But like Mercedes, the Scuderia’s approach to 2024 will involve a radical departure from its predecessor in a bid to take the fight to Red Bull.
“I don’t know if revolution is the right word. We have the same regulations now three years in a row that you can't change massively. It’s a matter of tenths of a second,” Vasseur explained.
“For sure, we have to do a step on that, we don’t underestimate the step. We are changing 95 per cent of the components, perhaps you can consider that it's a revolution, I don't know if it will be.
“The expectation is that we are focused on ourselves, we are doing a good step forward. But in the end, it's always a matter of comparison, you can improve by 100 steps but if the others are improving by 120 you will look stupid.”
Vasseur revealed that both Sainz and Charles Leclerc were heavily involved in the design of Ferrari’s 2024 war horse.
“They had a lot of involvement into the development of the car from the beginning. They are quite pleased with the situation,” he added.
“It's important to have them on board from the beginning. Carlos and Charles were both quite exhausted after the season.
“They said 'okay, we'll have a break for the next two, three weeks, and they will be back on the 9th or 10th of January'.
“And I think it's good also for them to manage their time. It will be even worse or more difficult next year.”
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