Frédéric Vasseur believes Ferrari « made too many mistakes » to hope for a podium finish in China

Ferrari had been the second-best team of the 2024 season so far. However, it did not meet these expectations during the 17th edition of the Chinese GP last weekend. With at least one driver on the podium in the first four races, neither Charles Leclerc nor Carlos Sainz managed to qualify. They respectively finished sixth and seventh, six tenths behind Red Bull driver Max Verstappen. The red duo still managed to outperform George Russell and Fernando Alonso, but failed to defeat Lando Norris, who easily took second place. This is partly explained by Leclerc and Sainz initially losing positions to Russell at the start as they struggled for grip. This made their recovery more difficult than necessary.

A mid-race safety car period further complicated things for Carlos, as he had already made his only pit stop for hard tires, putting him at a disadvantage in terms of tire life compared to his competitors’ cars.

« I think that if we lost something, it was more during the last relay. Carlos was a bit unlucky with the timing of his pit stop, as he stopped three or four laps before the safety car », said the team manager.

The tarmac did not help the pilots

The team principal, Frédéric Vasseur, stated that his team had made too many mistakes trying to optimize their package for the challenging Shanghai circuit, where F1 had not been since 5 years. Since the last Chinese GP in 2019, the asphalt has been resurfaced but does not meet the same standards as in Europe. The unusual tarmac surface of the track therefore slowed down the drivers during qualifying.

« Starting behind conditions the race because even if you are faster, if you do not overtake immediately, you stay behind and consume more tires. If there’s something that didn’t go well, it’s the qualifying », explains Vasseur.

« It was very difficult to understand the tarmac, also because of the format. This can make a difference in the end because we are talking about a tenth, we are not talking about half a second. But that cannot be an excuse. It’s the same for everyone and some teams have done better than others. We need to understand if we can do a better job of preparation.

« I think it’s really about putting everything in place. We didn’t have a clean weekend on our side, but we collectively made too many mistakes. […] In this group, if you don’t do a perfect job, you won’t be at the front. We have a pack of six or seven cars within a tenth in qualifying. This means that due to details, you can go from hero to zero. »

A lesser performance with hard tires

But Vasseur pointed out that the two Ferraris had more difficulties with the hard tires than with the mediums they had started the race with, and that it is an area to be studied.

We were a little less performant on hard than on medium. We were in a good position at the end of the medium relay, but we lost ground on hard. […] It’s more about extracting the best from what we have, and we didn’t do the job in this area, he admitted.