Vasseur on inconsistent Ferrari: 'Also then it was a disaster'
F1 News
Ferrari once again did not have a great weekend in the 2023 season, with the Prancing Horse struggling because of the SF-23's inconsistent performance. But team principal Frederic Vasseur thinks the car is already delivering some more consistent performance, but argues it still needs to improve.
Charles Leclerc had a dramatic weekend in Barcelona, as the Monegasque did not get beyond 19th place in qualifying after problems with the car. In the race, the Ferrari driver finished only 11th, again having major struggles throughout the race.
Vasseur on problems SF-23
Carlos Sainz started the race second after a good qualifying but clearly had a much slower pace than the Mercedes and Red Bulls in the race. Leclerc seemed to be struggling, especially as the Monegasque was driving into dirty air every time. But Vasseur also saw that Sainz also struggled in clean air. "If you have a look at the second stint of Carlos, he was also free air, and it was a disaster," Vasseur told GPblog and others.
Vasseur on Ferrari developments
Ferrari had brought quite a few upgrades to the Grand Prix weekend in Spain, which was especially evident in the SF-23's new sidepods. "Perhaps we can still do a little bit of development on the consistency and to have something a bit more easy to drive, so that we can still do a little bit. But with the direction that we took the last couple of months and weeks, I think that we are a bit more consistent than when we were at one stage."
"The issue is more than on the chassis side, the issue is more from stint to stint. Because if we had something like this, that's always there, but we had a stint in free air, very difficult, like Carlos in the second one. It's difficult to give thoughts," Vasseur continued.