Vasseur: First half of the season has seen many highs and lows

Ferrari had a great start to their 2022 season, with a fast car that Charles Leclerc stuck on pole nine times, but as that campaign progressed, the Reds' challenge faded as they succumbed to reliability woes, driver errors, not to mention their infamous operational mistakes from the pit wall.

As a result, Mattia Binotto was ousted as Team Principal and Fred Vasseur took his place, but the latter has barely had the time to make any impact since his arrival at Maranello, and the 2023 F1 season so far has been underwhelming, with their SF-23 suffering from excessive tyre degradation in races, driver errors playing a factor, while team operation hasn't been optimal, also keeping in mind Ferrari kicked off with a DNF for Leclerc in Bahrain due to power unit problems.

Since then Leclerc has secured two poles positions (Baku and Spa) and three podiums, the latest being his third place at the Belgian Grand Prix just before the break, a race his teammate Carlos Sainz did not complete following a first lap clash with McLaren's Oscar Piastri.

"We are happy with Charles’ podium," Vasseur said of Leclerc's result in Spa in Ferrari's media brief. "It was well deserved and it’s a nice way to head into the summer break.

"Apart from that, I’d say the weekend in Belgium had several other positives," he added. "The pace was good all weekend, on rain tyres and slicks, both the Medium and Soft. We made the right strategy calls and all the pit stops went well. Overall therefore, I think we have made a step forward and we must start off from this point when we are back on track, because only with this attitude can we aim to beat our closest rivals."

Of Sainz, the Frenchman said: "It’s a shame for Carlos because he too could have got a good result given that his pace was similar to Charles’ all weekend. The first corner here is often tricky and racing incidents after the start are always a possibility and that’s what happened.

"We opted to keep him out on track until the rain shower in the hope there might be a red flag which would have given us the chance to fix the car, but then it became clear that wouldn’t happen so we decided to retire him," he explained.

Reflecting on his first season in the Ferrari hot seat so far, Vasseur said: "This first half of the season has seen many highs and lows, but today it was clear we have reacted well after recent races that had not gone the way we wanted.

"The team all deserve the break, having worked so hard at the track and back in Maranello over the past months and when we come back, I want to see that same sense of determination," the Ferrari boss concluded.