The Italian team has become Red Bull’s primary rival thus far this season, but it hasn’t been able to prevent Max Verstappen from
taking the lead and winning the first two races.
Even though it is obvious that it must achieve a significant performance boost before it can consider competing against the world
champion team, Ferrari believes it is feasible to meet that goal.
The squad’s situation this year, according to team principal Fred Vasseur, is very different from that of last year, when any
improvements the team made would have been “useless” in light of the deficit it had with the winning team.
Vasseur remarked, “Now, I don’t want to be pessimistic, because it was a good weekend and we have to be optimistic and we need to
enjoy these moments, but it’s clear Red Bull is still ahead,” in reference to the current situation between Ferrari and Red Bull following
the first two races.
Maybe two or three tenths ahead of us in the qualifying round, and slightly ahead in the race. However, we don’t know if they were
pushing to the limit, so it’s hard to say.
However, there is a stronger sense that, should you return to this area, you can exert some pressure on them by taking action.
It seemed meaningless when we were one second [behind], but now that
Ferrari has an upgrade plan in place to improve the SF-24’s performance, and Vasseur says he is really encouraged that the team
doesn’t need to fix the car in order to grow from a strong baseline.
“I am not at all focused on the championship, but I believe we finished with an overall score of about 45 [really 49], and after three
races last year we had 25 [actually 26]. Making a strong beginning is crucial.
Additionally, I believe that the car is easier to drive now than it was a year ago—I don’t want to suggest that it has anything to do with
performance. Just that
Ferrari believes that it is now in the more direct phase of pushing for greater performance out of the car, having resolved the tyre
degradation concerns that hindered it a year ago.
He said, “It’s never like you have one bullet of five tenths on the car; the performance is coming from everywhere.”
“We need to get better in every single area if we want to catch up. We used this strategy last year, and it proved profitable in the end.
We made progress, but we still need to push in every single area.
“The aero is definitely important. We are in the process of making upgrades, but I’m sure everyone is as well. The most crucial thing is
to implement improvements.
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