Fred Vasseur isn’t out of the woods yet

Keep the faith. Trust the process. These are the lessons of Ferrari’s winning start to the F1 2026 season under Fred Vasseur.

Vasseur saw off rumours about his position last year to oversee Ferrari’s impressive start to F1’s new era. Yet with McLaren’s signing of GianPiero Lambiase raising questions over the team’s future leadership structure, maybe Fred still isn’t as safe as he looks…

Fred Vasseur could be the big loser in GianPiero Lambiase’s move to McLaren

A version of this article originally appeared in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix

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It was Guenther Steiner who best summed up the fickle nature of Formula 1 a couple of years ago.

Much was made of Haas’s much-improved 2024 season under the new leadership of Ayao Komatsu after Steiner had departed the team at the end of the previous year.

Yet as Steiner pointed out at the time, pretty much all the design work on that year’s Haas was carried out while he was still in charge.

For all the praise Komatsu received for making Haas a calmer, more engineering-led and more dignified place, it was ultimately under Steiner that the seed was sown for the team’s leap in competitiveness.

Steiner’s comments came to mind in light of Ferrari’s encouraging start to the 2026 season as the tension that had built up over the course of last year drained away.

Let’s imagine for a moment that Ferrari had succumbed to the wishes of the more emotional factions of the Italian media last season and parted ways with Fred Vasseur (who, for what it’s worth, is unquestionably the best thing to happen to the team in years).

Almost certainly, Vasseur’s replacement would now be regarded as the messiah for orchestrating Ferrari’s impressive start to the new rules cycle and bouncing back from a winless 2025.

And Fred?

Like dear ol’ Guenther, with his reputation in tatters he might have struggled to find a senior role in F1 again – certainly one as attractive as team principal of Ferrari.

Moral of the story: reputations in F1 rise and fall with the competitiveness of the car.

So it was curious that Charles Leclerc made such a big deal in Monaco recently of the influence of Vasseur in his decision to sign a new contract with Ferrari.

Leclerc effectively turned the pre-event FIA press conference in Monte Carlo into a Fred-a-thon, such was the emphasis he placed on Vasseur’s importance to his ongoing commitment to the team.

“Mostly Fred,” he told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets when asked what inspires his faith in Ferrari. “I’m very on board with his vision and I really believe in Fred.”

In answer to another question, he said: “I think with Fred we have a very good relationship and I strongly believe that he is the person that will be able to bring Ferrari back to the top.”

Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred.

As the weekend developed, it emerged that this had become a recurring theme of interviews given by Leclerc regarding his new contract.

It felt almost rehearsed. Planned. Pointed.

Vasseur, of course, saw off the initial uncertainty over his position last year by signing a new multi-year contract of his own.

Yet as anyone who has followed Ferrari for any length of time knows, the next crisis is only ever just around the corner.

When GianPiero Lambiase’s move to McLaren was announced in April, rumours circulated that he had been lined up as the next McLaren team principal, with Andrea Stella attracting interest from Ferrari.

Strangely, few at the time seemed to stop to consider what all this might mean for the current regime at Maranello.

PlanetF1.com understands that a move away from McLaren is not on the cards for Stella, whose role will remain unchanged when Lambiase eventually arrives.

But as reported by this website in April, it is plausible that Lambiase is being positioned to replace Stella when the role of team principal next becomes available, with sources indicating that GP may have been sold this exact scenario as part of his move from Red Bull.

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Laurent Mekies’ comment at last month’s Canadian Grand Prix that Lambiase is “going to be team principal” at McLaren felt like the moment this story moved beyond rumour into something much closer to an open secret.

So let’s say that Lambiase does take over at McLaren in the coming years and Stella does move on… where exactly will that leave Vasseur?

If Ferrari does indeed turn out to be Stella’s next destination when his work at McLaren is done, surely he will not be heading to Maranello to work under Fred.

Might it be that, spooked by its woeful 2025, Ferrari has a succession plan ready to spring into action the next time the team suffers a lacklustre season or another alarming dip?

In that context, Leclerc’s comments back in Monaco might be seen as a message to Ferrari’s senior management: I remain loyal to you for as long as you remain loyal to Fred.

Fred Vasseur’s commitment has been key to Lewis Hamilton’s improved F1 2026

Few would have blamed Ferrari if it had effectively given up on Lewis Hamilton following his lacklustre first season with the team.

Hamilton’s 2025 campaign did little to dispel the doubts that surfaced in his frustrating final few years as a Mercedes driver.

Yet Hamilton’s performances did not put off Vasseur when the opportunity presented itself to bring him to Ferrari over the winter of 2023/24.

And with the pair reunited at Maranello, 20 years after Fred oversaw Lewis’s triumphant GP2 season, Vasseur wasn’t about to give up on him ahead of 2026 either.

More than anyone, it seems, Vasseur has continued to see that the Hamilton of old – or something reasonably close to it – was still waiting to break out again with the right machinery.

More than once over recent weeks, Hamilton has publicly thanked Vasseur for his trust – his loyalty – when others had already written him off.

It has become clear that central to Hamilton’s switch from Brembo to Carbon Industrie brake discs, the same he used throughout his dominant Mercedes years, has been central to his improved 2026.

Given that Ferrari’s relationship with Brembo spans more than half a century, it was no small thing for Vasseur to agree to a single driver’s request.

Especially when that driver had done little over the previous 12 months to justify such a leap of faith.

That calmness in the chaos is what Fred has brought to Ferrari since his appointment almost four years ago.

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