Vasseur is sure that Ferrari has "all the ingredients" to be successful
Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur is sure that the Scuderia has all the ingredients this year to be successful, but he suggested that the Maranello-based outfit has not been able to extract the maximum from its SF25.
Lewis Hamilton left Mercedes at the end of previous season to join Ferrari for 2025. The seven-time F1 champion suffered a rocky start to the current season, having struggled for pace in Australia.
However, the Briton went on to secure pole position for the Shanghai sprint before dominating the 19-lap race. The following Suzuka round turned out to be a difficult weekend for Hamilton as he struggled for pace in qualifying while he also suffered from higher tyre degradation than his direct rivals experienced.
The 40-year-old then appeared to be more comfortable in his SF-25 in Bahrain, but he failed to put a good lap together in the last qualifying segment, ending up only ninth on the grid. However, he finally displayed encouraging race pace at last Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix, pursuing an offset strategy to move up to grid to a fifth-place finish thanks to a series of brilliant overtaking manoeuvres.
On the back of another tough weekend for Hamilton in Saudi Arabia, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur claims that the seven-time F1 champion's experience will help the Scuderia make inroads in the closely-matched fight in 2025.
Although Charles Leclerc had a similarly rocky start to his season, the Monegasque sacrificed the practice day at the Japanese Grand Prix for trying out a series of setup directions. The Monegasque has been seemingly much more comfortable in his car since then, and he displayed a promising race pace in Bahrain before grabbing his first and Ferrari's first podium finish in 2025 in last Sunday's race in Jeddah.
Asked whether the Scuderia has all the ingredients this year to be successful, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur insisted that he is sure that the Maranello-based outfit's SF25 can be competitive, but they have not been able to extract the maximum from the car yet.
"Ingredients are all there, but now it's like cooking, and you have to put the ingredients together at the right stage. Honestly, I don't have the feeling that we’ve extracted the best from the car so far, or perhaps on some occasions, some sessions. But I’d say it's true for us and for the others.
"Even McLaren, with the step they have compared to the rest of the grid, sometimes you have one of their cars that is struggling a bit more. It is what it is. A couple of years ago, you could go to Q1 with a set of Mediums, do one lap, and you were in Q2."
Reflecting on the tight nature of the current F1 field, Vasseur insisted: "Today, even the top teams have to put sometimes two sets of Softs. Again, the field is very, very tight, and each time you make a mistake, you can lose five or six positions. Then the conclusion from outside is that it's a drama.
"We're more focused on pure performance, and five hundredths is not a drama. That means we need to stay calm in the analysis if we want to improve. I think it was one of the skills of the team last year to be able to capitalise hundredths of a second at a time. I hope we'll follow the same path this year."
