Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur believes Max Verstappen and Red Bull will be susceptible to making mistakes if their rivals can apply more pressure than in 2023.
After prevailing in 10 of the 11 last rounds in 2022, Red Bull extended its advantage to win all but one of the 22 rounds the past season, securing the title with record races to spare.
Ferrari had been earmarked to challenge Red Bull this season having begun the current regulation cycle with the fastest car, but the team struggled with a capricious SF-23 car.
But the Italian marque rallied impressively to deny Red Bull a historic clean sweep in Singapore and also ended the campaign with three pole positions in the last five rounds.
However, Verstappen overhauled Charles Leclerc on each occasion to end the year having won the last seven grands prix, three shy of the 10 in a row he previously achieved.
While Vasseur credited the Dutchman for a “mega season” as he stormed to a third title, the Ferrari boss is convinced his side got closer to putting Verstappen under threat.
Asked to assess Verstappen’s remarkable campaign, Vasseur acknowledged in Abu Dhabi: “I think it is not sure that someone has a doubt on this, he did a mega season.
“He was fighting with Checo [Sergio Perez, Red Bull team-mate] in the first two or three events and then he was on another planet.
“Clearly, he didn’t do a mistake all season, and when he struggled in quali, like in Jeddah, it was due to a mechanical issue. And then he was always there, always making good starts, no contact. The only one was Vegas [with George Russell].
“But I think we are getting a bit closer to him, we are…I don’t want to say putting him under pressure because it is not true, he was not under pressure [in Abu Dhabi]. But he was a bit more under pressure than he was in Zandvoort, or in some other events when he was flying.”
Despite Ferrari’s improvement, Vasseur admitted that the Maranello squad still lacked the competitiveness needed to regularly haggle Verstappen in race trim.
But providing Ferrari can manage to provide a car capable of fighting Red Bull in 2024, Vasseur is certain that more errors will start to creep in from the reigning champions.
“There is no doubt on the fact that he was dominating all the season,” he added.
“And the only issue for us is that, as everybody, he will do more mistakes when he will be under pressure.
“But nobody was able to put him under pressure this season except us at the last two or three events, or except Carlos [Sainz] in Singapore.
“And it’s where he started to do some mistakes, or perhaps Red Bull did some mistakes in terms of set-up. We were too far away to put this kind of pressure on them.”
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