Vasser: Rivalry between teammates is good for the team

Frederic Vasseur, the head of the Ferrari team, cannot be satisfied with the results of the Spanish weekend, as once again none of his drivers even made it onto the podium. But he prefers not to dramatize the situation.

Frederic Vasseur: “We started from 5th and 6th position and finished in the same places, so my conclusion is this: we need to qualify better. You have to take a small step forward so as not to start behind your main rivals, because then you have to use riskier tactics.

Yesterday we lost a few tenths to those who started in front of us, today the pace difference was about the same, and if you recalculate it against the distance of the entire race, it turns out that the gap has not increased.

The contact between our drivers’ cars was very little, and I don’t think we lost anything because of it. We lost a lot more when we ended up behind the cars of some other teams after pit stops on the track.

Outside the cockpit, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have a very good relationship and trust each other. But they’re racers, so of course situations like that can happen on the track. At the same time, I know very well that such rivalry is good for the team. Last year we managed to achieve better results, partly because there was an intense rivalry between our teammates during the season.

Tactically, with Carlos we wanted him to follow the same pattern as Russell, so we had to pit early and he went from soft to medium and then to hard. A different plan was developed for Charles: we wanted to extend the first segment so that he could switch to Soft at the end of the distance.

When the difference in the pace of the four teams’ cars is so small, around 0.20-0.25 seconds, the balance of forces can change from track to track. The Austrian weekend includes a sprint next week and I expect the Red Bull Ring configuration to suit us better.”