Bold Moves and Ambitious Strategies Propel Ferrari Forward in the Fierce Battle of Formula One

Vasseur’s Arrival Brings a Breath of Fresh Air to Maranello

Last winter, Frederic Vasseur took over the reins at Ferrari from Mattia Binotto. Despite joining too late to have a substantial impact on the 2023 car project, his reorganisation efforts showed great promise during the latter half of the season. While grappling with constraints imposed by their chassis limitations, Vasseur managed to infuse a new level of risk-taking and aggression into the team – an approach that proved more fruitful than any physical upgrades made to their SF-23.

“When you step into a group like this,” explained Vasseur, “you must first understand how it operates before making any decisions or taking action. Our greatest improvement this season came through our mindset and approach. We embraced risk-taking and adopted a fearless mentality towards failure.”

The Frenchman firmly believes that this shift in attitude translated into valuable lap time gains. “We have to be ambitious and unafraid of setbacks,” Vasseur added. “I reckon that we made significant progress in this regard.”

A Few Tenths Make All the Difference in a Tightly Contested Grid

In 2023, the competition was fierce, with teams vying for every tenth of a second advantage. According to Vasseur, Ferrari found themselves initially trailing by two or three tenths at the start of the season. However, through their continuous pursuit of improvement, they managed to bridge that gap by one or two tenths.

With the grid becoming increasingly compact and tightly contested, even just gaining a few hundredths can completely alter the dynamics of an entire race weekend. While Ferrari did introduce some upgrades during their campaign, it was ultimately their more aggressive on-track tactics that propelled them forward towards success.

Racing Success Born from Fearless Aggression

Vasseur firmly believes that Ferrari’s surge in form during the latter stages of the season came as a result of their newfound aggression. He emphasized how critical every fraction of a second is: “You make up 0.020s here and 0.020s there and at the end, it’s one tenth.”

The team’s performance improvements were not solely dependent on car development but also heavily influenced by their operational strategies implemented during races: “In Japan, we brought some upgrades which certainly helped us but I remain convinced that our track operations contributed significantly to our progress throughout this period.”