Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur believes free practice at Silverstone this week will provide the Italian outfit with a chance to do a “sanity check” on its car after the “massive” set-up changes undertaken in Austria last weekend.
Ferrari’s Austrian Grand Prix was a mixed bag, with Carlos Sainz delivering to the Scuderia its first podium since Monaco – thanks to the late clash between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris – but Charles Leclerc concluding his day a lowly P11 after picking up damage on the opening lap of the race.
Overall at the Red Bull Ring, the Scuderia underperformed once again, trailing behind its Red Bull, McLaren, and Mercedes rivals in pure pace, a deficit that has led to the perception that Ferrari has lost ground to its main competitors.
However, Vasseur remains optimistic and refuses to adopt a negative mindset, though he acknowledges that qualifying remains a significant issue for the team.
“We were speaking before the discussion about the situation yesterday [in qualifying] that when we arrived on [Turn] four, we were one-tenth and a half in advance on Norris.
“It means that if we close the lap, and I know perfectly that we have to close the lap, I think the perception of this is completely different.
“But for sure, as usual, and even when you do the pole position, and even when you win the race, you have issues on the car. If you don’t have issues, you are at the beginning of the end.”
Vasseur then highlighted the fact that Ferrari implemented significant set-up changes on its SF-24 between Saturday’s Sprint event – which Sainz and Leclerc finished respectively P5 and P7 – and qualifying.
“We changed massively the car between Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon,” added the Frenchman, quoted by Motorsport Week. “And I think it was better.
“We changed a little bit the weakness of the car from corner to corner, but I think overall we are there.
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“I think it will be helpful for us to have FP1, FP2 in Silverstone, also if the weather is good, to do a sanity check on everything.
“But strangely, I’m not negative on the performance. Strangely, because we are in the race, we are far away from Max. But I had the feeling that we were able to get more today.”
Vasseur reckoned that a clean qualifying from Leclerc in Q3 could have rewritten the whole Austrian Grand Prix narrative for the Scuderia.
The Ferrari boss also insisted that he is keeping his team in overdrive regarding its car’s development.
“Honestly, yes, if we finish the lap yesterday in quali, I think I will have the comments that, ‘you are back, you are fighting with Red Bull, you are at less than one-tenth off the pole position, blah, blah, blah,'” Vasseur contended.
“It’s just in any case, and I think you can take my quote of Monaco, I think I was saying exactly the same.
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“It’s not after a good result or a bad result that we have to change the mindset or the team or whatever.
“We had good weekends, some weekends we were faster than everybody, some weekends we were at the level of Max, some weekends we were at a step-down.
“I think this weekend we started a step-down. But the reaction was good, and I think on Saturday morning we were in a much better shape. Saturday afternoon, sorry.
“No, no, we don’t want to change. I think Silverstone will be helpful for us.
“We have ideas into the pipe, we have upgrades to bring later on, but we won’t change the approach, and we will continue to push.”
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