Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur has revealed that single-lap pace on new tyres is a limitation that the team must improve with its 2025 Formula 1 car “to do a step forward”.
The Maranello-based squad’s bruising start to the campaign continued in Miami as Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton came home line astern in seventh and eighth.
Ferrari was resigned to a damage limitation race as Leclerc qualified eighth as the side’s lead car, while Hamilton, who logged third in the Sprint, was eliminated in Q2.
Ferrari’s qualifying woes can be attributed to an increased emphasis on long-run performance from 2024 that has come at a cost to its previous potency over one lap.
And while the drivers struggled to make up ground in the race, Vasseur recognised the low starting positions were most detrimental to the Italian marque’s prospects.
Asked whether Ferrari extracted the maximum result in Miami, Vasseur told media including Motorsport Week: “I would say yes.
“If you don’t consider the quali yesterday. We lost the weekend of the maximum of points since yesterday in quali.
“Yesterday in quali our fastest lap with the two cars was with scrubbed and not with new. We were not able to get the potential of the new tyres.
“The lap that we did in scrubbed was not that bad. It was probably P4, P5. But when the others put a new set [on] we lost the 4-5 position.
“Clearly it’s where we have to improve, if you have a look at the global picture of the weekend.
“It’s where we have to improve to get the best from the new tyres and to do a step forward.
“I think the pace today is always difficult when you are stuck in the pack. But the pace today was probably matching with Red Bull and Mercedes.
“I think McLaren was on another planet today. We never said that we could have fought with McLaren. But with a better position we agreed to fight with Max and Mercedes.”
Why Miami exposed Ferrari problems
Vasseur revealed that Ferrari was at an initial loss to decode the reason behind the team’s troubles unlocking pace from new rubber being more pronounced in Miami.
“If I knew the answer of this, I would do a step forward and we would have fixed it between Q2 and Q3 yesterday,” the Frenchman remarked.
“You always have to operate the tyres in a very narrow window.
“It’s different from track to track, it’s different from compound to compound, from track time to track time.
“And it’s always after the session that you say, ‘OK, I could have done [it] differently’.
“I think we were able to do a better job the last two or three events, even if the quali was always not our best session.
“But yesterday was, from far, the worst of the season in terms of pure quali, because we didn’t at all extract the potential of the tyres.
“If you have a look, everybody improved five or six tenths between scrubbed to new, and we lost two or three tenths.”
However, Vasseur admitted the Miami International Autodrome’s dependence on good mechanical grip at slow speed accentuated a Ferrari weakness with the SF-25.
Asked whether there is a chance the gap to McLaren can be closed, Vasseur said: “Today it was clearly the case, but it was not the case last week in Jeddah.
“I think in Jeddah last week, Charles was faster than the others from Lap 10, when he was in third at the end.
“Sometimes we are able to fight with them, but it’s not enough. You have to be able to fight one race or whatever, but today we were far away.
“We were far away because of the characteristics of the track. We are much more rear-limited, so it’s fitting more with the McLaren approach.”
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