Vasseur makes his mark: How Ferrari are increasingly becoming a racing team

At the end of 2022, Mattia Binotto was sacked as team principal of Ferrari. For many people, it was a strange move. Binotto had just finished second in the contructors' standings with Ferrari. Appointing Frederic Vasseur as the new team principall signalled that only first place is enough for the Italian racing stable. Still, results do not say it all and it will be mainly the process behind the scenes that led to Binotto's resignation and Vasseur's appointment.

Why Binotto had to leave the field at Ferrari

Indeed, anyone who dives deeper into the matter will understand why Binotto was blamed for the team not becoming world champions in 2022. The year of the new regulations. For Binotto, as team principal and technical director in one, this was the chance to return to the top. However, he did not get this done.

You can say "he came second, didn't he?", but that's not enough for Ferrari. Certainly not if you look at the situation before that season. Ferrari were not contenders for the world title in 2021 and could shift all their attention to 2022 very early on. It did just that, unlike Red Bull Racing and Mercedes who were fighting for the world title right up to the last race.

In their first year under the budget cap, Ferrari should have taken full advantage of this. Where its two biggest rivals were battling for the world title and thus logically put a lot of money and time into that car, the team from Maranello could abandon the championship in 2021 and work on the car and organisation for 2022.

While the car in 2022 was good enough to compete for the world title at the start of the season, the organisation was not. Strategic blunders followed each other and the drivers proved unable to compete with Max Verstappen. To make matters worse, Ferrari's car also proved not to be as much of a miracle as they first thought. In fact, Red Bull, under the leadership of Adrian Newey, appeared to have built a much better design, which got better and better with several updates. Binotto lost for words.

That Ferrari could not compete with Red Bull Racing on a managerial and technical level became completely clear in early 2023. Vasseur had meanwhile been appointed team principal, but the new car was still made by Binotto. That car proved even less competitive than the year before. Ferrari had not only lost more ground on Red Bull Racing, but had also been overtaken by Mercedes.

Why the bar was lower for Vasseur in the first place

Vasseur could not be expected to turn such a car and organisation into a world-class team within a short time. Red Bull were already way out of the picture. For Vasseur, therefore, it was mainly about making his way forward. This goes step by step, but it is becoming increasingly clear that those steps are indeed being taken.

The first signal was there at Zandvoort 2023. Then the team had deliberately started testing certain things to learn more about the car. They found a solution to previous problems and after the summer break scored the most points of any team, excluding Red Bull. In the end, the team fell just short of Mercedes for second place among constructors.

In 2023, the management team also proved to be of a higher calibre. Ferrari soon knew that in Singapore the chance would come to beat Red Bull. That weekend, the team maximised their setup, Leclerc was sacrificed to give Sainz a bigger lead in the race and Sainz himself was crucial in maintaining his lead in the closing stages. Ferrari suddenly turned out to be a race team that made logical decisions and stood there when they had to.

In 2024, the team continued that line. Vasseur has put forward Enrico Cardile as technical chief, possibly in anticipation of bringing in a new technical director. The confidence Cardile is getting from Vasseur has paid off with the SF-24 narrowing the gap to Red Bull Racing. The Ferrari's race pace is better and that allowed the team to maximise in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and to win when Red Bull had problems in Australia.

Whereas Binotto was dismissed after finishing second in the championship, second place for Vasseur this year would mean a pat on the back. It is strange, but results do not always tell the complete story. Under Binotto, a huge opportunity to take Ferrari back to the top was missed, while Vasseur shows that the team is making strides forward.

Vasseur has made Ferrari a real racing team again, doing 'logical' things. Now it is up to him to completely close the gap with Red Bull Racing and actually bring the world title back to Maranello in the coming years. Because in the end, that remains true for Vasseur too: only the world title is good enough for Ferrari.