Ferrari 'has halved' Red Bull deficit - Vasseur

Frederic Vasseur believes his Ferrari team has "halved" the gap to Formula 1 pace-setters Red Bull, despite its strong start to the season.

Reigning World Champion Max Verstappen has won both races so far in 2024 by 25.110s and 18.639s from the closest-non Red Bull, of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, respectively.

Verstappen has won 21 of the last 24 races since the start of the 2023 season, but Red Bull's winning margin in Bahrain was nearly cut in half, with Ferrari stepping up from the leading gaggle of itself, Mercedes, McLaren and Aston Martin to emerge as the closest challengers.

Whilst Team Principal Vasseur does feel there is a little mystery around the true race performance, he is confident that the Scuderia has managed to half the gap to Red Bull.

"It is never easy to have a clear picture on the race performance because you don't know when the guys are pushing," Vasseur told media including RacingNews365.

"But if you compare with one year ago, plus or minus two-tenths, we were at 1.1s [behind Red Bull], and now it is four, five or six-tenths so we have halved the gap.

"The performance is coming from everywhere, and it is never that you have one bullet which can bring five-tenths to the car, and we must improve on every single area.

"It was the approach last year and at the end, it did well as we made a decent step, but on every single area, we have to continue to push, and for sure the aero is always key.

"We have upgrades in the pipeline, but I am sure that so does everybody else, and the most important thing is not to bring upgrades - but to bring upgrades that you can operate on the car it is where last year, we did a good job."