Ferrari Formula 1 boss Frederic Vasseur has urged the team to become “more opportunistic and efficient” after admitting it spurned too many points throughout 2023.
The Italian marque’s bid to launch a sustained title challenge was stymied from the outset by an unpredictable SF-23 car that struggled to maintain speed in race trim.
However, Ferrari also ended up dropping to third in the standings, having squandered a multitude of points courtesy of various operational errors and reliability shortfalls.
Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz failed to start a race in the last six rounds, the former crashing on the formation lap via a hydraulic issue in Brazil from second place.
Prior to that, Leclerc had retired from a podium position at the first round in Bahrain, which led to a grid penalty for an engine change next time out in Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, the Monegasque retired from the Australian and Dutch Grands Prix and was excluded from the race result in Austin for a technical infringement related to plank wear.
With Ferrari ending up three points shy of Mercedes in second place, Vasseur has reiterated the need for the team to maximise more results than it managed this season.
“We started on the wrong foot in Bahrain when we had to stop, we were P3 and [then] the penalty for the second race. It meant for Charles it was almost 25 points of penalty,” Vasseur said.
“Plus the points that we were giving to the others with the two Mercedes that were behind us.
“But again, it is not only this one, you can do the list. Trust me, I have done the list a couple of times and have it in my head the classification without the issues and overall, I think that you have ups and downs during the season.
“For sure, we gave up more points than our competitors and that means it is another topic that we need to work on for next year, to be more opportunistic and more efficient.”
Vasseur, however, suggested that he wanted to avoid the use of hypotheticals to summarise Ferrari’s campaign, insisting that every team on the grid could do the same.
Having overseen his debut year at the helm of the Maranello squad, the Frenchman states that he would rather focus on ensuring preventative measures are put in place to avoid a repeat of such mistakes.
“I will keep this [lost points] in my mind because I hate to race with ‘if’, because everybody can race with ‘if’ and do a better job,” he acknowledged.
“It means that this is completely forbidden at the factory to work with ‘if’ but it is important. It is not to find an excuse at all because it is our fault.
“It is where we have to improve. It is clearly a huge potential in terms of points.”
