Vasseur’s contrasting approach to Binotto: "We can’t bulls*** ourselves"

Ferrari finished sixth and seventh in Sunday’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, with Carlos Sainz classifying over 35 seconds behind race winner Sergio Perez.

Many tipped Ferrari to fare better in Saudi Arabia than Bahrain due to tyre degradation being less of a factor plus the SF-23 is more efficient in a straight-line compared to its predecessor.

Like Mercedes, Ferrari have a lot of work to do if they are to get anywhere near Red Bull in F1 2023.

Speaking after the race, Vasseur was asked what the first thing he would tell his team after Jeddah.

“To not bulls*** ourselves,” he replied. “The most important thing in this kind of situation is to know where we are going well and what we are doing wrong. But we cannot bulls*** ourselves.  

“We have to change. We have to understand where we are wrong, and we have to push. It’s not [good enough] to speak, we will not be faster like this.  

“For me the picture is quite clear. The potential of the car is good, but it’s not enough compared to Red Bull, because we are not able to extract the maximum from the car every time.” 

Even though tyre wear wasn’t an issue in Jeddah, Vasseur feels it’s still an issue - how they manage the different compounds.

“The first stint went pretty well and Charles had a good comeback, but he was with the soft [tyre] and nobody knows about the different compound," he added.

“Carlos was in a decent pace on the first stint with the medium, compared to the others, but we lost completely the ground with the hard [tyre]. 

“It’s where we have to understand that the main issue is. If we have some improvement to do, it’s clearly on the management of the different compounds.”