Ferrari Formula 1 boss Frederic Vasseur is adamant that the team can’t rely on pursuing a “magic bullet” in its bid to overturn the deficit to Red Bull over the winter.
The Italian marque’s bid to sustain a title challenge throughout 2023 was thwarted from the outset by an unpredictable SF-23 car, an evolution of the race-winning F1-75.
After an inconsistent opening to the season, Ferrari improved beyond the summer break with its revised car concept to score the only non-Red Bull win of the year in Singapore.
Although Ferrari would register three pole positions in the final five rounds, Red Bull’s superior race pace prevented the Maranello-based squad from landing a second victory.
Ferrari concluded the campaign in third place in the Constructors’ standings, a mammoth 450 points behind Red Bull, who ceased development on its RB19 car in August.
With Ferrari pursuing a new philosophy to eradicate the “crystal clear” flaws of its 2023 challenger, Vasseur has warned that the team can’t make the mistake of believing Red Bull’s advantage comes from one area.
“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,” Vasseur cautioned.
“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.”
Having trailed Mercedes by 56 points heading into the mid-season shutdown, Ferrari came within three points of pipping the German marque for second place overall.
However, Vasseur has denied that a relentless upgrade push was the reason for Ferrari’s resurgence, instead attributing it to gaining a better understanding of the SF-23.
“I’m more than pleased because between Zandvoort and today, we didn’t change massively the car,” Vasseur explained.
“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. “
