rewrite this content and keep HTML tags
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur believes there is still untapped potential in their car as they remain without a podium finish so far this year.
The team brought a floor upgrade at the previous round in Bahrain which appeared to improve the SF-25’s balance. Vasseur confirmed they expect it to deliver more around the high-speed sweeps of Jeddah.
However with the leading teams often separated by no more than a few hundredths of a second, Vasseur said it is proving difficult to extract the maximum from their cars.
“The ingredients are all there, but now it’s like cooking and you have to put the ingredients together at the right stage,” he said.
“Honestly, I don’t have the feeling that we’ve extracted the best from the car so far. Perhaps on some occasions, in some sessions. But I’d say it’s true for us and for the others. Even McLaren, with the step they have compared to the rest of the grid, sometimes you have one of their cars that is struggling a bit more.
“It is what it is. A couple of years ago, you could go [through] Q1 with a set of medium [tyres], do one lap, and you were in Q2. Today, even the top teams have to put on two sets of softs sometimes.
“Again, the field is very, very tight, and each time you make a mistake, you can lose five or six positions. Then the conclusion from [those] outside is that it’s a drama. We’re more focused on pure performance, and five hundredths is not a drama.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“That means we need to stay calm in the analysis if we want to improve. I think it was one of the skills of the team last year to be able to capitalise by hundredths of a second at a time. I hope we’ll follow the same path this year.”
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were encouraged by the car’s performance on the medium tyre compound in Bahrain, especially over the middle stint. Vasseur said they must concentrate on delivering that level of performance consistently over a weekend.
“It’s true that this stint went well for us. Unfortunately, the Safety Car came also a bit too early.
“Now the issue – or the project – is to be much more consistent [than] to have a good stint in the race or a good stint in Q3 or Q2.”
He said the Chinese Grand Prix was an example: Hamilton won the sprint race but the team performed less well in the grand prix, then both cars were disqualified for technical infringements.
“If we want to come back and fight for the win, we need to have much more consistent weekends,” said Vasseur. “This one has started in a good way. But I think it was a good example [in] China: The sprint race and the sprint quali went well and as you can imagine, we didn’t turn the car upside down after winning the first one for the day after. We are really on the edge.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
“I don’t want to speak about the others, but as soon as you push a bit too much, you pay the price with the tyres the corner after. It’s really on the edge, very difficult to find the right balance. But we are improving in this direction.”
Ferrari scored podium finishes in each of the last three rounds of 2024 but has not taken any so far this year.
Miss nothing from RaceFans
Get a daily email with all our latest stories – and nothing else. No marketing, no ads. Sign up here:
Go ad-free for just £1 per month
>> Find out more and sign up
2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Browse all 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix articles
