Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur has conveyed his irritation that the blame for its 2025 Formula 1 failure was pointed towards Technical Director Loic Serra.
The Scuderia suffered hugely throughout the year, ending it without a victory across a whole season for the first time since 2021.
Its SF-25 challenger was much maligned throughout the whole year, amassing just seven podiums all year, all scored by Charles Leclerc.
Serra joined the team in the autumn of last year, leaving his post as Performance Director at Mercedes to head up its technical team.
The Frenchman replaced Enrico Cardile, who vacated the position to join Adrian Newey’s technical team at Aston Martin.
With Serra therefore in place for the start of the season, responsibility was placed on his shoulders for the team’s woes, but Vasseur told an assembled media throng in Maranello that this was an unfair assessment.
“It’s more of Loic Serra’s car,” he said when asked about its 2026 car. “I don’t want to escape responsibilities, but if we talk about Cardile then we also have to talk about Loic.
“Enrico left the team in June 2024, this means that when Loic joined the team, in early October 2024, the single-seater was almost fully designed.
“That’s why I got a little angry when at some point in the season some media charged Loic: I think it was a bit unfair.
“In the end, next year’s car is not his first ‘child’, he has had it before, but it is Loic’s first real project.”
Vasseur ‘convinced’ Ferrari 2025 abandonment will pay dividends
Such was the underperformance of the SF-25 that Ferrari opted to abandon any serious upgrading of it in order to focus solely on the 2026 car, which will tackle F1’s brand-new set of technical regulations.
Asked if that would bring a good advantage to the team, Vasseur was confident it would, but acknowledged that essentially giving up on its existing car so early brought a psychological test to everyone involved.
“That’s for sure,” he replied. “Then, knowing if you took the right path or not is another story and no one today can know.
“But we still have a huge rate of development compared to that of the 2025 cars, this means that the decision to stop after five or six races was difficult, but I am still convinced that it was the right one.
“If there’s anything I underestimated at this stage, it was the psychological effect on every single team member, including the drivers.
“Surely it was a decision made for good reasons, that is to try to get the best in 2026, but on the other hand, when you are in the middle of the year and you still have 20 races to play without any more aerodynamic development, it is difficult.
“And I probably underestimated this aspect, both for the team and for myself, believe me”.
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