Ferrari couldn’t have had a worse Canadian Grand Prix if they had tried, with both drivers failing to take the chequered flag.
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both had work to do during Sunday’s race but for very different reasons simply couldn’t have any impact on the leaders.
Talking about the team on Sky Sports F1, former driver and commentator Martin Brundle was speaking about Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur.
Vasseur wouldn’t have been happy with how the Canadian Grand Prix played out, especially after a double-podium finish at the previous race in Monaco.
However, Ferrari have had a very positive campaign so far and Vasseur has played a key part in building the team up to be genuine title contenders.
Brundle has now shared what worried him about Vasseur when he joined Ferrari and how he’s already allayed those fears with some of his decisions.
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Martin Brundle shares what worried him about Frederic Vasseur taking the Ferrari job
Frederic Vasseur has been involved in motor racing for decades and worked his way up to being Ferrari’s team principal via several roles with different teams on the grid.
He worked with several huge stars in junior formulas such as Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg before eventually ending up as the team principal at Renault in 2016.
Vasseur resigned at the end of the season before moving to Sauber and leading the Swiss team for several years.
In 2022, Ferrari announced that Mattia Binotto was departing as team principal and Vasseur was being hired in his place.
Vasseur had experience working with Ferrari during his time with Sauber, but it was by far the biggest job he had taken on in Formula 1.
Since then, Ferrari have gone from strength to strength and now look like serious rivals to Red Bull and McLaren at the front of the grid.
He’s also used his connections to sign Hamilton for the 2025 season and is working hard to see if he can complete his dream team by hiring Adrian Newey.
Brundle believes that the worries he had about Vasseur when he took the Ferrari job are now gone.
However, if they have a repeat of their performance in Canada at the next race in Barcelona, then the Italian media won’t give him much respite before the pressure is on once again.
Frederic Vasseur has made Ferrari F1 title contenders
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Talking about the 56-year-old, Brundle said: “I worried for Fred [Vasseur] when he went there because when they were successful before, they had Jean Todt, Ross Brawn, Michael Schumacher, Rory Byrne, Luca di Montezemelo, Stefano Domenicali.
“And it seemed as though you needed that kind of might to calm and put up with the sort of pressure of being Ferrari, particularly in Italy.
“Fred’s gone in there and he clearly focuses on what matters. It reminds me a bit of Flavio Briatore when I drove for him at Benetton.
“I’m not sure Flav knew which was the front and which was the back of the car, he didn’t need to because he had Ross, Rory and Pat Symonds at the time to do that.
“Obviously Flavio is a different character altogether and faces different challenges.
“But when I said, you’re just 24 points behind Red Bull, he said: ‘Are we?’, so clearly he’s just focusing on what matters and what he can have an impact on, he just sends a calmness all the way through the team.”
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Vasseur has brought calm to a teammate that seemed to always be one bad result away from disarray.
Ferrari also had a reputation for being awful at making the right strategy calls and Leclerc’s bizarre move onto the hard tyres in Canada aside, that’s something the team’s strategists have fixed.
Vasseur will have a job on his hands keeping Leclerc and Hamilton happy next year as they’ll both hope they can challenge for the world championship in 2025.
If he can create that level of harmony, then they may be able to finally end Red Bull’s stranglehold on the Constructors’ Championship.
The post 'He went there': Martin Brundle shares what ‘worried’ him about Frederic Vasseur when he took over at Ferrari appeared first on F1 Oversteer.