Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur reckons the tight battle involving the teams behind Red Bull has meant it’s easier to go from “hero to zero” in the 2024 Formula 1 season.
The Italian marque has emerged as Red Bull’s most consistent contender in the nascent stages of the campaign, registering five podiums and a 1-2 finish in Australia.
However, Ferrari endured an underwhelming weekend in China last time out as McLaren emerged as a surprise competitor to split the Red Bulls through Lando Norris.
With Ferrari trundling home fourth and fifth, Vasseur has conceded that the Maranello-based squad failed to unlock the inherent potential built into its SF-24 machine.
Vasseur has accepted that the close margins separating the four teams behind Red Bull in the standings will see those who underperform on a weekend get punished.
Asked whether the balance of power would have been different without the interruption of the Sprint format, Vasseur said via Pit Debrief: “There is no normal weekend.
“And so, from the beginning of the season, we know that our pack is very, very tight. And perhaps that Max [Verstappen] sometimes is a bit faster.
“But we have a pack with six or seven cars in one-tenth. I think in quali yesterday, it was one-tenth between P2, P3 and P8 or P9.
“That means that for details, you can move from hero to zero.”
Ferrari’s struggles with warm-up in the cooler Shanghai temperatures cost both drivers in the first sector as Charles Leclerc qualified sixth and Carlos Sainz seventh.
Both drivers lost two positions at the start and Vasseur has conceded that ending up in the turbulence of other cars had a detrimental impact on Ferrari’s race pace.
“And when you start from P9, the race is much more difficult because you have dirty air in the first laps,” the Frenchman continued.
“Even if you are faster, you struggle to overtake. Because if you don’t have the big gap, you damage the tyres in the first 10 laps, and then you are dead.
“I think it’s really a matter of putting everything together. We didn’t have a clean weekend on our side. We made too many mistakes.
“And we know that in this group, if you don’t do the perfect job, you won’t be in front.”
