Vasseur shocked by lack of Red Bull dominance: 'They were flying'

In 2023, Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz was the only non-Red Bull driver to win a race. However, this season, all four of the top teams have had their drivers win. At the start, it was expected that it would be another dominant Red Bull year, until other teams started showing their strong performance, such as Sainz winning in Melbourne, and Lando Norris in Miami. Mercedes then entered the mix in Canada. Thus, for Vasseur, this four-way title fight has come as a surprise: "I think it's true that we had the first part of the season in China where Red Bull was flying," he told GPblog and others in the . "Then we had a good sequence for us with two or three wins, and then it was McLaren, and now it's Mercedes, or Mercedes and McLaren."

Although last season the fight for second place in the Constructors was tight between Ferrari and Mercedes, this season McLaren have now entered the mix, and are currently the closest challengers to the Austrian team. "I think that the four teams did a similar job. It's not quite often that after 12 or 13 races you can have four teams in position to win the championship," Vasseur explained. "We scored something like 60% more points than one year ago after 12 months or something like that. We reduced the gap by 300% on Red Bull, and I think that is the interesting part of the championship." 

How did the first half of the season end?

The Belgian Grand Prix marked the last race before the summer break. Whilst it was Charles Leclerc who started on pole, it was Lewis Hamilton who was triumphant, after his teammate's disqualification. With this, it saw three different teams - Mercedes, McLaren, and Ferrari - finish in the top three. "On Friday morning, I would have bet on Max, even starting with P11, that he would have been flying. Then, in the afternoon, it was obvious that it will be McLaren, and at the end, we got the pole, and Mercedes won the race. It's a good summary of the season and a good summary of the championship this year," Vasseur added. 

In the latter half of the season so far, Ferrari lost their second place in the Constructors to McLaren. Whilst Vasseur admitted the team "struggled" and "overreacted", he remains optimistic for the remainder of the year. "We lost too many points at this stage, but I think we are back today considering the pace that we had on Friday as we finished before P7," the Ferrari team boss concluded.