Frustrated Vasseur praises Ferrari for enormous improvements, but has huge respect for McLaren

While he has huge respect for McLaren, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur has hailed Ferrari for having made a huge improvement compared to the previous years and getting close to winning its first teams’ title since 2008.

Starting from P3 on the grid, Sainz moved up a place after Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri collided at Turn 1. The Spaniard appeared to have the same pace as Norris on the medium tyres, with Ferrari electing to pit Sainz a lap earlier than Norris to attempt an undercut move.

While Sainz managed to reduce the gap to the race leader to under two seconds, the McLaren driver managed to disappear into the distance, displaying a more impressive pace on Pirelli’s hard tyres.

His team-mate Charles Leclerc endured technical difficulties on Friday as Ferrari was forced to change the battery in his SF-24. The penalty and a deleted lap time in qualifying meant that the Ferrari driver started from P19 on the grid.

While overtaking can be quite difficult at the Yas Marina Cirucit, especially when drivers form DRS trains, Leclerc had a sensational start to move up to P8 by the end of the opening lap. The Monegasque then moved further up the field, and a slightly earlier pit stop meant that he found himself up in P3 after all the top runners completed their mandatory tyre change.

Although Ferrari failed to turn the situation around in the Constructors’ Championship, Vasseur praised the Italian outfit to bounce back from a series of tough seasons which enabled them to stay in the hunt for the title until the last lap of the championship.

“We pushed all the way to the last corner of the last lap. I am very happy with the job we did today, because it was unexpected to finish P2 and P3, given where Charles was on the grid. Today, Charles drove a great race.

“Before the start I had a bet with him on what his position would be at the end of lap 1 and we both lost it as he was too far ahead of what we had both predicted and we can say it’s definitely not today that we lost the championship.

“It’s a bit frustrating to finish 14 points behind McLaren as it is a very small margin, less than 2% of the total available. I have huge respect for what McLaren has done in recent years. So congratulations to them.

“From our side, the target is never to be P2 so, if you are not P1 it means you have to improve, but I’d say we had a good season, making a solid step forward as we’ve scored 50% more points than last season, but the target remains that of winning titles.

With Carlos Sainz having completed his final outing with Ferrari, Vasseur thanked the Spaniard for having been professional and consistent in the past seasons.

“And finally a word for Carlos: he was always very professional, always consistent and he and Charles always fought each other hard which is a good thing as you progress faster as a team this way. I wanted to see the team all pulling in the same direction and Carlos did more than his share in achieving that.

“For next year, myself and everyone in the team do not need to look for motivation, because we already have it! From tomorrow, we will already be focused on 2025.”