Being more aggressive paid off for Ferrari - Vasseur

Ferrari was more aggressive later in the 2023 season that paid off in its results, according to team principal Fred Vasseur.

Ferrari struggled for consistency in the first part of the season, sitting fourth in the constructors’ championship and nearly 60 points adrift of Mercedes at the halfway point after the Hungarian Grand Prix. In the second half, Ferrari closed that gap to finish just three points adrift of second place in the standings and while Vasseur says there are personnel changes taking place in Maranello he was more impressed with the ability of the current team to change its approach.

More Formula 1

F1 regulation tweaks 'not easy', and changes are expected in stages - Permane

How F2 and F3 are providing the tools for F1 success

How F2 finally found its way to North America

“We already changed some people – I’m not a big fan of communicating names, I never did it and I won’t do it,” Vasseur said. “But it’s not about one person or even me, it’s more about the group. I think the most important is the group of people that we have, and I am quite proud of the reaction of the team during the season as a group, including drivers in the team.

“We had a tough first six months until Monza, and the reaction was a good one and it means as a group we work pretty well. For sure you always have to do individual changes in an organization, and we are doing it, but I think on this process we are recruiting and recruiting a lot.

“In F1 you have a huge inertia due to the contracts in place. When you identify an issue, you decide to recruit, you have the process of recruitment and you then have the guy will join 12 months later with a six-month notice period plus – he will work on the car of the year after [arriving] and that means very often you will take a decision and the impact is a year plus two or plus three.

“But this is not the only topic, I think the main topic for us and the best improvement we made this season was more on the approach and the mentality. We took more risk at the end and we were a bit more aggressive, and this paid off in the last part.”

With Ferrari actually slipping from second in 2022 to finish third last season, Vasseur says the team cannot be happy with its final result but needs to focus on the positive momentum it has created.

“Nobody can be happy with what we did at the beginning of the season. We had too many issues in terms of reliability and so, and I was the first one upset with this, and performance.

“But I think more than anything, the reaction of the group and the reaction of the team, the fact that we were able to do – I’m not a big fan of statistics – but I think we did something like five pole positions out of eight events or something like this. The fact that we are able to fight with Max [Verstappen] on some occasions in the races was a good step forward.

“Even if we are not happy, and I am the first one, I don’t need to have Mr [Benedetto] Vigna or Mr [John] Elkan telling me, I’m not happy with P3. This is clear. But I am more than happy with the reaction of the team and I think this feeling is the same for everybody.”