Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur has expressed confidence that his team will make a “step forward” in the coming races.
The Maranello-based squad was unable to compete against rivals Red Bull at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix last weekend.
Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez locked out the front row in qualifying, however Ferrari was left encouraged by the three-tenths of a second gap to pole position.
But in the race, Red Bull streaked away from the competition and cruised to a 1-2 finish, with Ferrari finishing in fourth through Carlos Sainz.
Charles Leclerc appeared to be on course for a podium finish before a mechanical issue saw him retire late on.
Despite the issues it endured while Red Bull took full points, Vasseur insists that Ferrari’s situation isn’t as poor as it seems.
“We have some, let’s say, positive aspects of the weekend: the fact that we’re able to match them [Red Bull] in qualifying,” he said.
“It’s good news that the fact that Charles was able to keep up with them in the first stint was also a good situation for us.
“Now, they were able to do the second stint with Soft and we had to put the Hard to go to the end and some of the base difference at this stage can also be from the tyre choice, we were not able to do soft-soft-hard.
“It is like it is and we have to, you know, the most difficult thing in my business is to be able to do a proper analysis of the situation – to know what is going well and what is going wrong, and to try to do the best on the issues when we have a better picture of the situation.
“We know exactly what we did this weekend, but we are confident we can make a step forward.”
Prior to Leclerc’s retirement, the Monegasque driver was notably the faster of the two Ferrari drivers.
Vasseur states that Sainz was struggling with degradation, which was a visible issue for Ferrari during pre-season testing.
“In the first stint Charles was with the new [Soft tyre] set because we didn’t choose a new set yesterday in quali, and I think it was an advantage for him,” Vasseur said.
“Carlos complained a little bit on the radio on some topics and that probably you are aware about this, but I don’t know if it’s the real issue.
“Let us look at the overall performance, but for sure the degradation on Carlos’ car was the main problem.”
