Fred Vasseur identifies 'most important thing' for Ferrari F1 title fight

Ferrari's ability to sustain its current development rate will determine whether the Scuderia can mount a serious constructors' championship challenge in the second half of the F1 season, according to team principal Fred Vasseur.

Speaking to media, including RacingNews365, after the Hungarian Grand Prix, Vasseur was asked where he felt Ferrari's greatest strength had been in the first half of the campaign, and where he saw the clearest room for improvement after the summer break.

The Frenchman highlighted that the opening 11 rounds of the year had seen two distinct stages, with Mercedes first building a commanding advantage before Ferrari started to hold its ground from the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, which Lewis Hamilton won, his first for the Maranello-based team.

Following Kimi Antonelli's victory at the previous round, in Monaco, Mercedes held a 79-point buffer, which the Prancing Horse has marginally trimmed to 72 points in the subsequent five events leading into the summer break.

"The first part of the season was, I would say, probably in two stages," Vasseur said.

"The first one was until Spain, when Mercedes was flying; they scored something like 100 points more than us in four or five events. After Spain, when we came back, we scored more points than Mercedes over the next four or five races."

Areas to improve

For the 58-year-old, Ferrari's most important strength has been its ability to keep improving the car race by race.

The challenge now is maintaining that development rate across the second half of the season, particularly with Mercedes openly stating that its upgrade programme is "second-half weighted" and that a significant package is planned for immediately after the summer shutdown.

Vasseur drew a clear distinction between Ferrari's philosophy and that of McLaren, who have favoured fewer but larger upgrade packages this season.

"McLaren did a huge step forward, but they don't have exactly the same philosophy because they are bringing big packages, and I think the last one was Miami or Canada," he said.

"For sure, each time they bring something, they are making a huge step, but we have a different approach, trying to bring parts every single race, and we have to keep this momentum because it's still 11 or 12 races to go... and we have room for improvement on the chassis everywhere, and we have to keep this pace."

Ferrari's relentless upgrade frequency has not gone unnoticed. At the Austrian Grand Prix, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff remarked: "We're a little bit surprised that Ferrari can throw these huge updates at the car in the way they do." He added: "In my opinion they need to be running out of money soon, cost cap money, because we can't do that."

However, Vasseur did not frame Ferrari's second-half challenge solely around the chassis. Asked where the team still had to improve, he pointed to race execution — which he felt was "very poor" in Budapest — while also acknowledging that progress is required on the power unit side.

"Where we have to improve is... if I draw a conclusion based on the Hungarian Grand Prix, I would say execution, but execution so far was probably a good [aspect] for us from the beginning of the season," he added.

"We know that we have to improve on the engine side, and we will do it, even if the inertia on the engine is much higher than on the chassis.

"The most important thing would be to be able to keep the pace on the development."