Fred Vasseur makes Ferrari request after Charles Leclerc British GP win
Ferrari has won two of the last three races.
Fred Vasseur has requested people stay grounded when talking about Ferrari despite the Italian team winning two of the last three grands prix.
Momentum has been wrestled away from Mercedes who, after a dominant start, has watched as Ferrari took victory in Spain and Great Britain.
Fred Vasseur asks for Ferrari calm after British GP win
Both victories, while fortunate due to safety cars, were won on merit with Ferrari clearly the main competitor to Mercedes as it stands.
With 20 points made up on the Silver Arrows over the Silverstone weekend, Ferrari’s gap to Mercedes is at 78 but Vasseur has played down any suggestion his team is now in the title race.
“After Barcelona, we had the comment Ferrari is back in the championship, I said no,” Vasseur told media, including PlanetF1.com at Silverstone. “The week after, they told me Ferrari is nowhere. I said, no.
“We have exactly the same approach with everybody at home tomorrow morning to say ‘guys, we did a good weekend. Now let’s be focused on Spa.’
“It’s not that we are champions, we are not nowhere. I never try to draw a conclusion after one race to race after a good result or bad result, and just focus to do more and to do better, and I think it’s true for me, it’s true for everybody at the factory.”
As Vasseur mentioned, next for Ferrari and the rest of the F1 paddock is a trip to Spa for the Belgian Grand Prix but Ferrari has not won there since Charles Leclerc’s first race win back in 2019.
Asked for his team’s competitive chances at the weekend, Vasseur said Mercedes still had an advantage.
“They have still an advantage, six, seven sessions that we did this weekend, they are probably five times ahead,” he said.
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“We had a good race. But we wanted to be realistic, overall they still have small advantage in terms of pure performance.”
After Silverstone exposed issues with Formula 1’s current battery makeup, the 7km of Spa is set to be another test.
Having come through the Silverstone test on top, Vasseur was cautiously optimistic for what his team could achieve in Belgium.
“I think for sure it’s much more engine related in Silverstone than Spain two weeks ago, but it was also the first time that we had windy conditions.
“The characteristic of the track is completely functioning just about the engine, and I think we did pretty well with all these topics.
“But next week will be another challenge. We have to start from scratch over the weekend. Now there is no single magic. We don’t imagine to make a step of five, six tenths in one weekend. It’s the addition of small gains everywhere.”
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