Frederic Vasseur has no issues in managing drivers amid troubled F1 2025 season and the frustration shown by Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at times.
By the end of F1 2025, both Hamilton and Leclerc were getting agitated by the lack of results from Ferrari. The un-developed car started to be a lot more inconsistent and any public statement started to become headlines, which included the statement from John Elkann.
While Hamilton and Leclerc along with Vasseur played down what Elkann said, but the performance didn’t improve and driver frustration continued. The last three weekends were horror show for the Brit, so much that a recovery to points from back in Abu Dhabi didn’t excite him as much.
His qualifying results in the last few rounds bogged him so much that he was looking towards the winter and going away from everyone without his phone as well. One can guess what Hamilton feels by his presence in the media. He is certainly downbeat when things don’t go his way.
But Vasseur didn’t take it in bad spirit. He highlighted that he may speak things in the media straight out of the car, but in debriefs and meetings, Hamilton is always positive and pushing to get things right. The Frenchman had similar saying for Leclerc, who usually puts his mistakes ahead of team’s.
Vasseur wants his drivers to be outspoken and be clear in their mind to what they want rather than being defensive even in the media. This is why he is not worried about the frustration, as he reckons it is a collective frustration rather than just from Hamilton and Leclerc.
Managing driver frustrations –
Vasseur: “Well, honestly, I perfectly understand the frustration of the drivers after a crash, or even more when they are not responsible, or a difficult performance. We have exactly the same frustration in the garage or on the pit wall. The most important is to react after the frustration. I think, honestly, the frustration sometimes is good. The most important thing is to be able to react from the Monday morning and to be focused on the next one, on the next year also, and on the future. You can’t imagine, and I would be even more frustrated, if the drivers were happy when we have a tough weekend. I don’t think we went so far. It was not a drama, honestly. You know my two drivers – they are like they are, and I perfectly accept this. I’m fully aligned with this frustration – we have exactly the same on the pit wall. When you have a crash in Brazil and Charles is out of the race because Piastri and Antonelli are crashing together, for sure we have huge frustration. We put so much effort during the season to try to fight for P2, and in one tenth of a second you are losing a potential P2. It’s huge.
“Or when you don’t have the good race because we have a technical issue or whatever. But this frustration, I think, is part of the DNA of what we are doing. Then from driver to driver, there have different ways to express their frustration, but everybody has exactly the same. I would be destroyed if I had the drivers telling me that we are doing a good job. The summary of the season for a driver is to find where we can improve always that I’m not there, we are doing a good job on this. But their DNA and my DNA is to try to push the team to do a better job. It means that they have to come to us, and Charles and Lewis, it’s not Lewis or Charles, it’s both of them. They have to come to us and to push the team on the limit everywhere, on every single area. And for sure we can improve and we can improve everywhere. But last year, we were fighting it in the last corner and the reaction was exactly the same from Charles.
“He said, OK guys, we have to improve on every single area, the simulator, the setup, the aero. This is the DNA of their job and the DNA of our sport. I’m not shocked at all when they are coming to me and say, Fred, we have to improve on this, this, this, this and this because it’s what we are asking them to do. But when I saw sometimes in some articles that we had reports from the drivers asking for modification, but honestly, on this you are a bit naive because we have reports from the drivers every single race. There is nothing magic when the driver is sending a report to the team to say, OK, we have to do this and this. It’s their life. In the same way, we are trying to push them on the limit, push them on the driving, and so that it’s…I’ve been like this the last 35 years and nothing magical has happened with Lewis or with Charles.”
Scene with Hamilton –
Vasseur: “The season was difficult. I think it’s a mathematical contestation, not a feeling. But the most important is the reaction. The most important is the energy that you are putting in to push the team again and again, to try to understand what the issues are and to fix them – and it’s details by details. For sure, we knew that it would be difficult from the first quarter of the season. But at the end of the day, when we had podiums in a row one month ago, I think it’s the job of everybody. It’s not the job of one driver or one engineer. It’s the job of 1,500 people at the factory, from the two drivers, from all the engineers.
“Collectively, the reaction was good, and Lewis is part of the reaction, for sure. For sure, it’s not helping, but it’s our job that you have good results, that quite often you are world champion, you are at the top session, but then you are nowhere. But we, as a team, we have to stay in the bubble and to try to get the best from what we have. For sure, you have a pen down, for sure that you have to deal with this kind of situation. But Max was able to do it. He was P10 in quali in Budapest, he was P11 in the race, and he started to win races. It means that you can come back.”
Scene with Leclerc –
Vasseur: “I don’t pay attention to the reaction on the TV pen, honestly, or the reaction that sometimes they add on the microphone to the car, on the radio. But in the TV pen, they are jumping out of the car five minutes after the session. Sometimes they have bad results for a couple of hundreds. And you are asking them questions that I can understand that sometimes the guy is a bit emotional and to say, OK, yes, no, and you want to only think it’s to go back to the…I would say to the track, but to the engineering office and to discuss with the engineer to understand why. Honestly, the most important for me is to have a guy coming back to us and pushing the team to do a better job and to work all together to try to get better results. The fact that they are emotional sometimes on the radio and it depends on the guy. You know perfectly, all of you, you know perfectly Charles is always a bit of criticism with him and with himself first and with the team and with everybody. But it’s always with a positive dynamic.
“I know Charles for 15 years or 16 years and he was always like this. He was always complaining about everything, but it’s a positive dynamic that we are there just to do a better job and it doesn’t matter if you are P4, P3, P1, the DNA is to do a better job. I accept this perfectly and the most important for me is that if they keep the same approach into the debriefing to try to get a better car, a better team, a better everything it’s like this for me. I think Charles, if you have a look last year, for sure when you are going to the TV pen and you are asking him after the first day what do you want to do with the team, I think the approach is always the same, it’s always constructive to try to do better and even if I’m P1, I have exactly the same approach with the team on the Monday morning and to understand where we can do better and it doesn’t matter if you are P1 or P10.
“I think the debrief at Alpine, at Williams, at Red Bull or with us, it’s the same. We are just trying to do a better job on every single pillar of the performance on the engine, on the gearbox, on the aero, on the setup, on the simulator and this is the DNA of what we are doing but all of us, it’s not that just one team is waking up in the morning and saying we are not doing a good job, we have to push. Trust me, I think Max is pushing the team at the limit, Lando is pushing the team at the limit and honestly as a F1 team what we are expecting is part of their job and I started like this but if they were very happy with the car this is more positive than something else.”
Here’s Lewis Hamilton on wanting to keep his phone away
