Ferrari Formula 1 boss Frederic Vasseur believes the team’s promising race at the Japanese Grand Prix showed the “huge step forward” it’s made in high-speed corners.
The Italian marque’s encouraging start to the current campaign continued last weekend as Carlos Sainz ensured it retained its 100 per cent podium record this season.
Meanwhile, Charles Leclerc executed a one-stop to clear McLaren’s Lando Norris to take fourth and consolidate Ferrari’s grasp on second position in the championship.
Norris had capitalised on McLaren’s high-speed prowess to start third, but he had cautioned that Ferrari’s improvement in those corners had improved with its SF-24 car.
While Ferrari had lagged almost 44 seconds behind race winner Max Verstappen at Suzuka last term, Sainz was 20s adrift of the triumphant Dutchman on this occasion.
“I think we made a huge step forward on the high speed compared to last year and for sure Suzuka is a good example,” Vasseur said when asked about Ferrari’s speed.
“And on the tyre management, right now we have other weaknesses today, but for sure it’s always a kind of compromise, you improve somewhere and you are losing somewhere else.
“But overall I think that if you compare with Red Bull, over the last four events last year and the first four events this season, we made a decent step forward.
“The target for us is, for sure they are still a little bit ahead, but it’s to be able to put them under pressure and with pressure, you are doing more mistakes.
“It was not clear today, but I hope that will be the case in the future.”
Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner has touted that the increase in track temperature up to 40 degrees for the race helped the Austrian outfit secure another 1-2.
However, Vasseur denied the notion that Ferrari would have been in more competitive shape relative to Red Bull without the spike compared to the rest of the weekend.
Asked whether Ferrari would have been closer with a cooler track surface, Vasseur replied: “I think in China we will have the opportunity to test it in colder conditions.
“I don’t know because we did only FP3 in colder conditions. I’m not sure that we were in a better shape. You never know about the engine setting, level of fuel and so on.
“The deg was under control for us on Saturday but also for them [Red Bull]. It was almost the same one today.”
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