Driveability improved, but performance needs further boost, claims Fred Vasseur

Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur said after the Hungarian Grand Prix that the Scuderia is "on the right track" again, insisting that the upgrades to the floor brought a substantial improvement to the SF-24.

Ferrari has had a difficult spell in recent weeks. The Maranello-headquartered outfit introduced a new upgrade package at Barcelona which caused severe bouncing in high-speed corners.

The Scuderia has arrived with slight modifications to the floor of the SF-24 to cure the issue, and the car looked more planted at the Hungaroring than at previous rounds. Although it still seems to be a step away from McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes, the team thinks that it can build on the current configuration of the SF-24 for the remainder of the season.

Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur sounded an optimistic note when asked about the upgrades the Scuderia introduced for this weekend. The Frenchman has revealed that the new floor improved driveability, but the Scuderia still needs to find more performance in the coming races.

"First of all, congratulations to McLaren for its great weekend in a Grand Prix that was a wonderful advertisement for Formula 1. On our side, we had a good fight with Mercedes and Red Bull. We got the most out of our package that we could this weekend.

"We have made a good step in terms of the car’s driveability but now we need to come up with a step forward in performance to close the gap of two to three tenths to McLaren.

Sunday's Hungarian Grand saw Charles Leclerc display an impressive start, improving from sixth to fifth. The remainder of the race saw Monegasque battling with Lewis Hamilton for P4, and the Ferrari man later closed in on the Hamilton – Verstappen fight thanks to a good tyre offset.

In the end, he was set to settle for fifth until Verstappen’s late off, which earned him one extra place.

"Charles got a good start moving up a couple of places early on. We had a very strong pace in the middle stint on the Hard tyre while it was a bit more difficult at the end on the Medium.

"With Charles we tried to undercut Verstappen but Hamilton pitted at the same time so we were blocked behind him.

Carlos Sainz had a lonely race until the very end of the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Spaniard got overtaken by Lewis Hamilton, Leclerc and Fernando Alonso at the start of the race. Although he was able to retake his place from Alonso on Lap 3, he slightly lost the connection to the group ahead of him by that point.

Thereafter, he was slightly off the pace of the cars in front of him, and Ferrari put him on an offset strategy. This later bore fruit, and Sainz could display an impressive late-race pace, but he finished down in P6.

"Carlos didn’t have the best of starts and then he had quite a solitary race bringing home the best result in the circumstances. If we look at the points scored, we were second today behind McLaren.

"Of course we cannot be happy just with this, but I think we are back on the right track," Vasseur concluded.