Vasseur on Ferrari’s hopes for 2024: ‘I’m not in Red Bull’s wind tunnel’

After a rollercoaster of a weekend in the Netherlands, Ferrari now have the chance to compete in their home Grand Prix at Monza. Team Principal Frederic Vasseur wants to assure the Tifosi that they on track to fix the car’s issues and hopes for a strong result this weekend.

Ferrari at the moment are not where the historic team want to be, but Frederic Vassuer thinks it is too early to tell whether they can come back stronger next year. "When you want to improve, you have two steps. The first one is to understand where you are weak, and the second one is to fix it. I think we have a better picture of true weakness today and we are working on it. We are trying to improve before the end of the season, but it's not an easy one with the calendar and at least for next year," the Frenchman said.

He continued: "I didn't say that the car would be completely different. The question is to do the best job that we can to try to improve on ourselves, to work on ourselves, to fix the weaknesses that we have on the car."

The Ferrari Team Principal also said that competition, such as Red Bull, should be taken into account. "Then we'll see the outcome, because I'm not in the wind tunnel of Christian [Horner] and I don't know what they are doing. It means that we just have to be focused on ourselves and not to try always to compare with the others, at least during the development. Next year will be another story."

'After Spa, we can think about a podium here as well'

Vasseur was in an optimistic mood after FP1. "If we did it in Spa, we can imagine to be able to do it in Monza. But in the other end, if you have a look from the beginning of the season, it's so tight. I would say that perhaps Max is in a different situation between P2 and P11, P12, that every single weekend it's a different order. It means that the focus is not to make a forecast and prediction and so is to work on the car that we have and to try to get the best from it," he commented on Ferrari’s chances.

The Frenchman was so far satisfied with the car’s low area package, but thinks they will have a better outlook on what can be expected of Ferrari after FP2. "This morning the FP1 went pretty well. Now it's quite difficult. We are used to having our reference compared to the other on the usual format. Today it's a bit different. We didn't have the same run plan. We don't know exactly what level of fuel and setup of the engine that everybody is using. We are much more used to the normal format, but it looks okay, the balance was okay, and we are focused on ourselves. I think we'll have a better picture tonight."