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Vasseur satisfied with Ferrari's Spa result: 'Bouncing under control'
Charles Leclerc could start on pole position at Spa, but then Ferrari's pace fell back, and he had to defend P4 on track from Max Verstappen. Leclerc eventually finished on the podium after George Russell's disqualification, but the Italian team still struggled with the same problems in high-speed corners. Frederic Vasseur reacted to his team's result in Belgium.
In recent Grand Prix weekend, especially Carlos Sainz was critical of the Ferrari's bouncing. "Bouncing went well, under control. Performance of the car, I would say that if you finish less than ten seconds behind the winner in Spa after 50 laps, you can imagine that the pace is decent. I'm quite happy with the overall performance, a bit disappointed with the position, I would say because that the target was not to finish before P7 [with Sainz]," Vasseur reacted to GPblog among others. The Spaniard was then promoted to P6 after Russell's disqualification.
He continued arguing that small margins is in what Ferrari need to improve in. "If you have a look on the picture of Friday morning that everybody was thinking that Max [Verstappen] will fly and win the race, even with the penalty and that Mercedes was struggling like hell on FP2 or FP1, I don't remember, and they are back because at the end of the day it's so tight. It's making a huge difference of the championship."
The Frenchman is also excited for the sport because of the current small margins between the teams. "You have 6 drivers in 10 seconds at the end today. And for me, it's mega inspiring. We had the same in the past with a safety car."
When can Ferrari fight for more?
While Vasseur remained optimistic, the competition seems to be ahead of Ferrari at the moment. Since Charles Leclerc's victory at Monaco, a Ferrari driver could only step on the podium twice: Leclerc did so now after Russell's disqualification, and Carlos Sainz finished third in Austria after Max Verstappen and Lando Norris crashed.
"To fix the bouncing is a step in performance. For sure we are pushing like hell to bring something, and we will do it as soon as possible. We have also a good sequence of tracks for us with Monza, for example," the team principal explained.
On the other hand, for Zandvoort, Vasseur would still like to execute damage limitation. "It would be the same target [not to lose points to Red Bull and McLaren] in Zandvoort because I'm convinced that the next three or four races after these two [Spa and Zandvoort] will be much better for us. Now we really need to keep everything under control, to not overreact, to pay attention to details. And I'm quite positive."
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