The Miami Grand Prix gave a surprising victory to McLaren, with Lando Norris finally managing to achieve his first career success. In Florida, the Woking team overtook the Maranello team in performance, waiting for Ferrari to introduce its innovations at Imola, while Red Bull was unable to make the most of the RB20 with Max Verstappen still dissatisfied with the car’s set-up , but beaten on the track, and a Sergio Perez never threatened for the podium. After the race, Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur did not appear very surprised by the weekend’s result, however underlining the speed of the Ferrari and talking about the race of its two drivers.
Vasseur: “McLaren has been competitive since the beginning of the season. The top teams are separated by a few tenths”
The victory of Andrea Stella’s team does not seem to have impressed Frederic Vasseur very much, who however made a point of congratulating us on this achievement “They deserved it. Lando has been doing excellent things for a few years and so I want to congratulate him.” he made his debut at the press conference. Regarding performances, he underlined how there wasn’t much difference between McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari itself and that since the beginning of the year these teams have been separated by a few tenths “We are closed within 2-3 tenths and things can change depending on the track, the tire and other small factors. In Melbourne they were fighting with us, today they were in front” he examined it in a very frank way, underlining however that the difference between them and Red Bull is increasingly narrowing and this is also positive for the continuation of the season “With such similar performances it is difficult to overcome and therefore Qualifying, track position and strategy become increasingly important. Without the Safety Car Max could have won today, but Lando was luckywithout taking away his merits, and we were a bit unlucky with Carlos and the timing of the Safety Car. Today there were 6 cars that could win”
No desire to belittle the result of McLaren and Lando Norris, but only a desire to explain how the three top teams are now closer than ever and that even an event like that of the Safety Car can make the difference where the positions on the track are then change. “I think Red Bull still has a small lead, but we are getting closer. They are no longer in a comfort zone, they also have to be aggressive and are under pressure.” commented Frederic Vasseur, who has long underlined the importance of worrying the Milton Keyns team to make them make mistakes and fight, so as to compete for more ambitious results on the track. “One more small step and we will fight with them every weekend”
Sainz-Leclerc fight “No, let’s call it competition. Right strategy with Leclerc, good fight for Carlos”
Entering into the analysis of the race played by the two drivers, Frederic Vasseur commented positively on the work of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, even if their race was not free from various problems. The Monegasque was the author of a bad sprint at the start which immediately cost him a significant gap from Max Verstappen, also thanks to Sergio Perez’s ‘rocket’ entry into Turn 1 “We will analyze what happened because yesterday, from the same pitch he started well. Carlos, on the other hand, had started well but then lost two positions due to Perez and had to fight to overtake Piastri, losing some time.” Precisely regarding the battle between the Spaniard and the Australian – with Sainz who was ultimately penalized by five seconds and lost the final P4 – both the Ferrari Team Principal and Andrea Stella, for McLaren, agreed to define it as a simple accident of competition. “They fought, they touched, but that’s okay. There were two similar contacts between them” commented the Frenchman, while Andrea Stella went into more detail “Carlos was a little late in braking, he had some oversteer and there was contact, but I think it’s a simple race accident”. A thought evidently not shared by the race management and which will still need to be discussed because it continues to seem obvious to the riders, Team Principals and anyone else what is and isn’t allowed to do, with a continuous disparity in judgement.
The weekend saw the best Ferrari qualifying of the season and a very lively Charles Leclerc who got the better of his teammate, a theme always under the watchful eye of journalists and fans. Vassuer, however, wanted to calm the waters and tone down this constant comparison that is made between his riders “I don’t like the word fight, it’s competition. Carlos was better in the first Qualifying and now it’s Charles’ turn, but we’re talking about differences of a tenth.” Regarding the Monegasque’s race and his weekend in general, the Team Principal said that the approach was similar to the other races, even in Qualifying where Charles did a setup on the topic of tire preparation, while in the race he opposite performances are seen at different stages of the race “That also depends on the introduction of rubber. If you push immediately and go faster first, you will have more degradation at the end of the stint and vice versa” Regarding the strategy however, on which even Leclerc himself made it clear that he had doubts afterwards, Vasseur justified the choice with the strength of the SF-24 in tire management “We wanted to push our opponents to bring back the gop, aware that I think we are in a good position regarding tire degradation. I think it was the right choice”
