Ferrari needs to focus on “every pillar of performance” for 2025

Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur says his team will have to improve “every single pillar of performance” to catch McLaren in 2025.

Ferrari just fell short of beating McLaren after an up-and-down campaign in which the Scuderia returned to the championship fight and its drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz registered five wins and 22 podiums.

For the Maranello squad, 2024 was a huge turnaround after a disappointing 2023 campaign during which it struggled to get on top of its tyre overheating issues.

But given the fine margins between the Italian team, McLaren and last year’s champion Red Bull, Vasseur is aware there is no silver bullet that will allow it to come out on top next year, and it will have to find marginal gains in every single aspect as the current regulations cycle enters its final year.

“I think it would be a mistake to think that there is one thing. If you want to do a good job, you have to be focused on every single pillar of performance, on every single area,” Vasseur said.

“It is true for every single part of the car but I don’t want to start going through the list, because if I do that, I don’t want to point a finger at one group. But I think in every single area and department of the company, we just have to do a better job.

“This is not a criticism, it’s just that it has to be the mindset of the team that we have to come in each morning and try to do a better job than yesterday and try to improve what we are doing by hundredths of seconds. But this mindset is general for sport and if we don’t have it, we are dead.

“I will continue to push. I will continue to push all departments that they are first to be convinced that they are all a performance contributor on every level. And on every single area, we have to do a better job than 2024.”

When asked to summarise 2024, Vasseur said he was proud of the steps the team has made but couldn’t help feeling frustrated at the slender 14-point gap to McLaren, with Ferrari losing key points at several races including Canada, Azerbaijan and Singapore. 

“A good [step], but not enough,” he said. “If you compare with one year ago it’s a huge step forward and everything is great, we did a good [season] in terms of pitstop, strategy, reliability – we improved everywhere in terms of pure performance.

“At the end 14 points are missing and I think if you are 80 or 100 points behind you don’t feel the frustration. I have tonnes of thoughts in my mind where we lost the 14 points, but it is like it is. McLaren also had some issues, and it is just that we have to do a better job next year. But I’m also quite proud of the step that we did.”