Critics ignore Ferrari’s brisk pace – Vasseur

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Ferrari’s pace and performance potential is being overlooked and critics are a bit harsh on the team after its result at the Monaco Grand Prix, according to Fred Vasseur.

Charles Leclerc qualified third but a team communication error resulted in a grid penalty for hampering Lando Norris who demoted him to sixth, with Carlos Sainz dropping to fourth as a result. In the race, the two drivers lost two positions each but Vasseur, who also defended the team’s strategic choices, believes that the level of performance is close to that of Red Bull and is not recognized enough.

I don’t know if you’re that hard on Mercedes when they’re behind us in qualifying, Vasseur said when asked if he was concerned about appearing fourth or fifth fastest. race. At the end of the day, we were P3 in qualifying, less than a tenth from pole position, two hundredths from the front row. I don’t think it was a disaster.

I think we made mistakes throughout the weekend, team and driver together, but to say the pace wasn’t there in Monaco, I think it’s a bit harsh for us. We were in a position to fight for pole position and starting from pole I think victory was possible.

The drivers came to Monaco with high expectations, and so did the team. If we missed anything… we made mistakes throughout the weekend the main one was clearly the call to Charles for Norris and it’s my fault and I accept my fault but to say we don’t weren’t in the rhythm, it’s a bit hard.

Being able to fight for pole position is a satisfaction for me. Even if you finish P3… Charles was very upset with P3 because he felt we weren’t far from pole. But we can’t say that we are not in the rhythm this weekend.

Driven by inconsistent racing performances, Vasseur says only Miami can be criticized as Monaco have not given Ferrari the chance to show if they have made any progress ahead of an upgrade to be introduced in Spain.

We can say that the race was difficult in Miami. But the race (on Sunday) was not about pace. We were stuck behind (Esteban) Ocon and Carlos’ frustration was that he wanted to show the pace of the car but you can’t say we didn’t have pace during the race. The circumstances and the race scenario are the reason why we didn’t show any pace. But no one can say that we weren’t in the rhythm.

The feeling of Carlos Ocon who was also managing was that we were far from the potential of the car. I agree with you that the race in Miami did not show good pace. But in qualifying in Miami, we were fighting for pole position. Monaco qualifying, we are fighting for pole position. The Monaco race I would say that nobody knows about it.

I think next week we will have a better view of the race pace. I hope Barcelona are more relevant but we will have a better view of the situation. But this weekend in terms of real performance (was acceptable), not in terms of results, because in terms of real results we are far from expectations, but we are far from expectations for different reasons the penalty on Charles on Saturday, and the fact that Carlos went straight once and lost two or three positions at this point.

However, Vasseur admits Ferrari needs to work on a specific area of ​​its racing performance that has been emphasized in recent weeks.

Now it’s true that so far and I don’t want to talk about Monaco because I don’t think Monaco is representative of the situation but it’s true that so far we’ve struggled on the long stints for the regularity, from lap to lap or from bend to bend, and it was difficult for the drivers to find the limit and it is in this area that we are working today to develop the car.

It could be suspension or aero for different reasons, but it’s a topic today and here we are.

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