Ferrari: Fred Vasseur's technical revolution and changes initiated by team principal
Yesterday at 01:07 PM
Ferrari’s 2024 has presented us with a team that is certainly growing significantly compared to the very recent past. Only in 2023, the Maranello team had to face a technically dramatic situation, with a car that was unfit to compete in the F1 World Championship and a team literally in disarray, still reeling from the management more than from the hands-in-hair moments of Mattia Binotto. With the curly-haired, bespectacled manager, they hit rock bottom on several occasions, and the competitive first half of the 2022 Formula 1 championship certainly cannot be enough.
With the arrival of Frederic Vasseur, things have changed, and in almost two years of work, the Frenchman has cleaned house, sending away those figures who over time only caused damage or simply no longer had the right motivation to move forward, such as David Sanchez, who left Ferrari right after realizing the disasters of the 2023 car to join McLaren first, and a few weeks later, Alpine.
The latest high-profile name to leave the historic Maranello team was Italian aerodynamicist Enrico Cardile: the technical director left last July, just days after the disastrous aerodynamic update brought to the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, which, in hindsight, effectively excluded Ferrari from the world title battle with McLaren. Until that moment, Ferrari had managed to maintain a good pace, with two wins and several important podium finishes.
The legacy of the engineer from Arezzo was therefore impressive, as the SF-24 started to show negative performances until the summer break, when they decided to take a different direction, revisiting the early season work and the Imola update, thus forming a hybrid car and developing a new update path that evidently paid off until the end of the season.
The foundation for Ferrari's 2025 car therefore seems to be quite solid, as Frederic Vasseur himself admitted recently, despite the fact that he could not help but reiterate what has been said in recent months, including in several of our articles: with the disastrous aerodynamic update released introduced by the Ferrari technicians and engineers in Spain, the Maranello team lost many points in the direct battle with McLaren, which were crucial in the loss of the constructors’ championship.
“It was a positive season, considering all the reference metrics,” said Frederic Vasseur. “The wins went from one to five, and compared to a year ago, we scored almost 50% more points. We’re on the right track. We’ve improved in terms of performance, reliability, and efficiency, as confirmed by the main performance indicators. We need to continue aiming higher: we want more and must work on the areas where we’ve shown weaknesses.”
“Overall, however, the balance is certainly positive this year. I am particularly proud of the reaction we had in the face of the difficulties encountered during the summer months. We were in a shitty situation, but we managed to get out of it thanks to the teamwork and determination of our group. This result truly fills me with pride.”
As always, the Frenchman didn’t mince words, waiting until the end of the 2024 Formula 1 season for some harsh but nonetheless impeccable statements. The summer flop, led by those who are no longer part of the Maranello team, still stings, but it also served to clean up for a different Ferrari in the near future. 2025 is already around the corner, and the new car already has high expectations, especially since the recently concluded season ended with an upward curve from the SF-24, which did not become world champion only because of that clumsy attempt at improvement that did not succeed.
“We faced difficult weekends, like the one in Baku,” says the team principal of the Scuderia. “Even though we finished second with Charles, I believe we could have done a much better job than that result. Singapore was another complicated weekend, with both cars qualifying in ninth and tenth place. I think we could have achieved much more, and the same goes for McLaren.”
“It was a good season, but it’s not enough. If we compare it to last year, it represents a big step forward: pit stops, strategy, reliability: we improved in every aspect, including pure performance. We are 14 points short, and I think when you’re 80 or 100 points behind, you don’t feel the same frustration. McLaren also had its problems, and we will need to work better next year. That said, I am still quite proud of the pace we managed to set.”
— see video above —
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