Ferrari Formula 1 boss Frederic Vasseur has suggested that the team understood it wouldn’t be in a position to challenge for the title even before pre-season testing.
The Italian marque was bidding to build on a relatively encouraging 2022 season that had seen it return to winning ways in the first year of F1’s latest ground effect regulation era.
However, Ferrari’s competitiveness was stymied from the outset this season by a capricious SF-23 car, an evolution of the F1-75 that placed second in the championship.
While it entered the summer break fourth in the standings, Ferrari rallied to claim the only non-Red Bull win and came up three points shy of pipping Mercedes to second place.
Vasseur has revealed Ferrari was already aware it would enter the campaign on the back foot, having identified issues with its 2023 car through runs on the simulator.
“For sure I think the level of expectation was a bit too high at the beginning of the season and we understood quickly the situation,” Vasseur explained. “I think after a couple of laps in Bahrain. And even a couple of laps into the simulator before [we] go to Bahrain.
“But what I would keep in mind this season is the reaction of the team that we had a tough moment but remember after Jeddah or Miami or Spain or Zandvoort, Zandvoort is not so far away and we were almost lapped.
“I think that we, compared to Zandvoort, collectively made a huge step forward and this is good for the future.”
Despite introducing a version of the downwash sidepod solution pioneered by Red Bull midway through the year, the cost cap meant Ferrari was restricted by the architecture of its launch-spec concept.
The addition of a revised floor in Japan – Ferrari’s final upgrade of the year – helped widen the operating window of the SF-23, enabling Charles Leclerc to flourish late on.
“I’m more than pleased because between Zandvoort and today, we didn’t change massively the car,” Vasseur highlighted.
“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.
“We have room for improvement everywhere and this feeling is a good one to develop something for next year.”
With Ferrari opting for a new car philosophy for next season, Vasseur has stressed the need for the side to make gains in every area to emerge as a contender to Red Bull.
That extends to improving the operational and reliability sides, which the Frenchman points out cost the Maranello-based squad a multitude of points throughout the year.
“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 underlined.
“The performance is coming from everywhere into the company, on the fact that we are able to produce parts quicker, on we have a better reliability.
“We gave up too many points this season for different reasons, for reliability, for disqualification in Austin, for impeding in quali, but 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 is that the one thousand people we have into the team are convinced that they are all contributor and they are all trying to push a little bit the limit, even if it’s for one thousands of seconds which are enough then to do a huge step.”
