Ferrari highlight 'most important' factor for F1 recovery

Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur has revealed the most important factor for his squad as it aims to close the gap to Red Bull.

The Italian squad ended this year's campaign third in the Constructors' Championship behind runaway leader Red Bull and second-placed Mercedes.

Ferrari was the only team to defeat Red Bull this year when Carlos Sainz triumphed at the Singapore Grand Prix.

It was largely a disappointing event for the team after it took four race wins in 2022 and looked to mount a championship challenge this year.

Vasseur has rallied all Ferrari departments to have belief in their own contributions to the squad over the winter break.

“I think the mistake would be to imagine that Red Bull, they have a magic bullet of five-tenths or that we made a step on something,” he told media including RacingNews365.com.

“The performance is coming from everywhere into the company, on the fact that we are able to produce parts quicker, on the fact we have better reliability.

“We gave up too many points this season for different reasons, for reliability, for disqualification in Austin, for impeding in quali. This is clearly where we have to work.

“And we have to improve on aero, on engine, on every single topic. It's not that we have something wrong and something good, and you fix something and you are making a step of four or five-tenths.

“The most important thing is that the one thousand people we have in the team are convinced that they are all performance contributors, and they are all trying to push a little bit the limit, even if it's for one-thousandth of a second, which are enough then to do a huge step.

Vasseur pleased with car potential

Ferrari scored podiums at four out of the last five races but had to settle for third in the standings, three points down on Mercedes.

Vasseur highlighted his satisfaction with finding gains through further understanding of the current package in the second half of the season rather than installing upgrades.

“I'm more than pleased because between Zandvoort and [Abu Dhabi], we didn't change massively the car,” he said.

“We had an upgrade in Japan I think, but basically we kept the same car, and we were able to do a much better job with a better understanding of the car, better set-up of the car and a better approach from the drivers.

“It means that we have room for improvement everywhere, and this feeling is a good one to develop something for next year.”