It’s inevitable that Ferrari are facing this criticism. After Leclerc and Hamilton qualified 11th and 12th at their first home race of the season in Imola, Leclerc described the team as being “P-nowhere”.
Both drivers have bemoaned the lack of upgrades. The first of these since the fourth race in Bahrain finally arrived in Austria last weekend, and both drivers agreed they were a step forward, but that it would take time to judge how much. More are coming.
Nevertheless, Vasseur insists the car is better than the team have shown in recent races.
“The initial goal was to fight for the championship,” he said in Canada, “but I think it’s true for us, it’s true for McLaren, for Red Bull, for Mercedes. We are all in this mood to fight for the championship at the beginning of the season.
“If you compare with expectations, probably McLaren is one step ahead compared to everybody. And we didn’t do a good job on our side.
“Just speaking about us, we didn’t do a good job, in a couple of races.”
He points out that, after both cars were disqualified in China, they were 60 points behind Red Bull and 40 behind Mercedes two races into the season. Now, they are second in the constructors’ championship. On the flip side, they have nearly half the points of McLaren.
Vasseur describes this as “a decent recovery”.
The fact Ferrari have a stronger combined driver line-up than Red Bull and Mercedes is reflected in the fact that, despite their position in the constructors’ championship, Leclerc is fifth in the drivers’ – behind both McLaren drivers and the lead drivers from Red Bull and Mercedes.
“McLaren are still one step ahead,” Vasseur says. “It means we have to continue to try to do a better job each day and improve.
“You have to put everything together in the right place if you want to achieve a good result today, because in the tyre usage and the tyre performance, or what performance you get from the tyres, I think there is much more than between the cars.
“The car doesn’t matter. If the team is doing a very good job on the tyres, they will be in front. It will be like this until the end of the season. But it’s the same for everybody, we have to do a better job.”
As for Hamilton, he sees this as a building year for 2026, when new rules bring in revised cars and engines and Ferrari expect to be fighting at the very front.
He has generally not been especially comfortable with the type of cars introduced with the 2022 regulations, which demand a different driving style from those that came before. Next year’s cars are different in design again, and may well be different in driving character, too.
“The fact is with this car hopefully we can still fight for second in the constructors’ championship,” Hamilton says. “That would be great.
“But I want a car that can win next year. So that’s the priority. That’s what we’ve come here to get.”
