Ferrari beef up title fight potential despite Imola result

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has hinted at the prospect of a title fight this season following its podium result at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

While Max Verstappen took his fifth race win of the campaign, the Dutchman was pushed to the chequered flag by McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Norris crossed the line just seven-tenths of a second behind the three-time world champion while Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc trailed the duo by just a handful of seconds.

After Verstappen dominated the last two F1 seasons en route to title success, Vasseur hinted his quest will be tougher this time around.

“It’s good news for me, good news for F1, good news for the championship,” Vasseur told media including RacingNews365.

“You have three teams within seven seconds after 70 laps, it's less than one-tenth a lap. It’s almost the same from the beginning of the weekend.

“We start from scratch next weekend in Monaco with a different track layout, different corners.”

Missed qualifying opportunity

Ferrari brought upgrades to the race weekend in a quest for added performance following a strong start to the year.

While it showed strong speed during the race, it was out-paced during qualifying by Verstappen and the McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Oscar PIastri.

Had it managed secure pole position on Saturday, Vasseur is confident it would have been able to maintain its position and bag a victory.

“Overall it’s a kind of mixed feeling for me because of the thing that we did a step forward McLaren did the same as us,” he said.

“We are not far away now, I'm a bit frustrated because I think that if we do one-two in qualifying, we do a one-two in the race today.

“If we missed something, it was yesterday in qualifying, not today in the race.”