Frederic Vasseur thanks Mattia Binotto for the handover phase as new Ferrari boss talks about his first few weeks with the F1 team.
Even after the announcement of Binotto leaving and Vasseur joining, the Italian had to see-through whole of December at Ferrari. He did so too helping the Frenchman with the handover which was all done in good spirits as per the former Alfa Romeo boss.
“The process was crystal clear,” said Vasseur in his first media call to F1. “Even if we had rumours in the press before or during Abu Dhabi, we didn’t discuss before. We had the first discussion the week after Abu Dhabi. It was very quick as a process. Then I had a call with Mattia, even met Mattia during the handover, and we had a one to one discussion.
“Thanks to Mattia for this, as I appreciated the move from Mattia to stay, to wait for me, to discuss with me – it was really appreciated from my side,” summed up Vasseur. Ever since joining the team, the Frenchman has been involved pretty much with all the work and he was even present for the Fiorano test this week.
While he looks forward to the journey, he can’t do it without looking back what Ferrari did in the last few seasons and where they dropped the ball. “I am trying to understand exactly what happened on every single mistake last year and to try to know if it is a matter of decision, of organisation, of communication,” said Vasseur.
“Very often on the pit wall the biggest issue is more the communication and the number of people involved than the individuals. If you put too many people discussing about the same things, when you have the outcome of the discussion the car will be on the next lap. You just need to have a clear flow of discussion and communication between the good people in the right position.
“It’s a work in progress. I trust the guys in place and I will try to put them in the best position to do the best job. Then it will be time after a couple of weeks or months to take action if it is not working,” summed up Vasseur.
Here’s Ferrari undertaking 2023 testing
Here’s Charles Leclerc on his extreme training
Here’s Ferrari about its reserve pool
Here’s list of its junior drivers
Here’s Carlos Sainz on Frederic Vasseur
Here’s Ferrari counting on Carlos Sainz
