Vasseur: Everybody at Ferrari more keen to take risks, a bit less scared

Vasseur is the first Frenchman at the helm since the 'Italianisation' of the Scuderia, after Jean Todt led the team at the turn of this century until the end of 2007. Since then, Stefano Domenicali (2008–2014), Marco Mattiacci (2014), Maurizio Arrivabene (2015–2018), and Mattia Binotto (2019–2022) have all run the F1 show.

The only title among them was the 2008 F1 Constructors' Championship with Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa doing the business. Thereafter, the late Sergio Marchionne all but detonated the team with his brief but explosive 'leadership' of Ferrari's F1 effort. The blame game he appears to have instilled persisted long after his untimely death, with repercussions of bad his decisions felt for years at Maranello.

That is until Binotto was ousted and Vasseur was brought into the fold for the 2023 season. Often cryptic with his answers, Fred tends to speak from the heart. Speaking exclusively to F1.com, he revealed the truth about the suspected 'fear of mistakes culture' at Ferrari.

Reflecting on his second season in charge of the Reds, Vasseur said, “If I have to be proud of something, it’s not the result. The result is a consequence. It’s more the fact that everybody is more keen to take risks and a bit less scared – the consequence is the result."

"The fact that we are trying to change the mentality a bit, it’s a mindset for me. You can’t keep the margin. You have to take risks everywhere. This is a racing mentality. It is probably also the DNA of Red Bull. It’s where we need to take a step forward," Vasseur explained about the way to win in F1.

The 2024 F1 World Championship season has turned into a humdinger of a battle. Four winning teams and seven different race winners so far, including Ferrari duo Carlos Sainz (Melbourne) and Charles Leclerc (Monaco).

Everyone is chasing Red Bull's triple-champion Max Verstappen at the front, and beating him too, which was not the case last year. In fact, up until Round 14, RBR had won all the races to that point in 2023. This year, Max has seven wins, while Sergio Perez went AWOL.

As did Ferrari. Missing in action after Round 8 in Monaco, where they were P2 in the F1 Constructors' standings with 252 points, chasing Red Bull in P1 with 276 points. Fast forward to Round 14, and Ferrari are down in P3, with Red Bull still in P1, but the gap to the Reds has increased from 24 to 42 points, with Mercedes closing in fast and threatening to take P3.

On that note, Vasseur commented on the impact of performance on the team: “Internally, the mood is OK. For sure, we wanted to achieve more, and probably we overreacted to some events, trying to get more. When you have an aggressive attitude, sometimes you get less. It’s where we have to stay calm.

“Somehow, you need to have a kind of frustration when you’re not doing well because it’s also the best push to come back. But it has to stay under control."

Referencing Ferrari's forgettable weekends in Montreal, Barcelona, the Red Bull Ring, and Silverstone, Vasseur admitted: "We had four tough weekends. The mood in the team was not good, as it was not what we wanted, but there was positivity about trying to catch up, understand why, and fix it. The attitude is good.”

Vasseur's management style seems forward-driven, rather than resting on laurels or dwelling on mistakes: “There are people who can look at the positives and others who focus on areas of improvement – and I think I’m more in the latter camp. I don’t spend energy or time in my life asking each morning, ‘Are we happy with what we did?’

“This is competition. I did nine races in 10 weeks or something like that [including the 24 Hours of Le Mans]. The most important thing is to be focused on your weaknesses and to keep a continuous improvement approach."

The Ferrari TP continued: "My job is more about not blaming everything, but pushing or trying to get them motivated. My job is sometimes more about staying calm in both positive and negative situations.

“The reaction to everything is always amplified, internally first but also externally – with journalists – and part of my job is to convince everyone we are not world champions after Canada or Monaco, and we are not much worse one week after Canada," ventured Vasseur.

“Every single day, we have to try and do a better job than the day before," continued the 56-year-old from Draveil, south of Paris. "This is even more true today in F1, with such small gaps between the teams and the cars. Every single detail makes a huge difference in terms of results.

"The average gap between us and the teams in front is something like three or four-hundredths of a second. In Imola, you had three cars within one-thousandth of a second. We have to keep this in mind and make sure we are trying in every area of the company – from production to design to track operations to aero – to chase every tenth," explained Vasseur.

As for the hottest seat in sports, which being Ferrari F1 team principal is, Vasseur said: “It’s a huge challenge. It’s probably the most demanding job in my business. But the mood is there, and the mood is important for the final result. We have to keep the positive attitude that we have and try to do a better job.”