Ferrari confident of “mega step” at Australian GP despite no points

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur says his team left the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix on a positive note having made a “mega step” towards solving its race pace issues.

The team had a disastrous Sunday afternoon in Melbourne in terms of the F1 world championship, failing to score any points, as Charles Leclerc retired on the first lap after contact with Lance Stroll and Carlos Sainz tumbled from fourth to 12th place after taking a five-second penalty for causing a collision with Fernando Alonso.

Despite the obvious frustration, Vasseur said the team did at least get some answers regarding its race form.

After a disappointing Saudi Arabian GP that saw both drivers tumbling down the order on switching to the hard tyres, Ferrari spent the build-up to the Melbourne weekend putting an extra focus on long-run performance.

While Leclerc didn’t get a chance to find out if the strategy had worked, Sainz had a strong race despite losing out by pitting just before the first red flag, as most of his rivals got a free tyre change during the stoppage.

He had recovered to fourth before the final restart and the incident with Alonso.

“We are a bit down with all of this,” Vasseur told Motorsport.com when asked about the weekend.

“But overall, I think the mood is positive, because we did a mega step forward in terms of performance in the race, and we will build up the rest of the season on this. I will be positive and I will push again and again.

“I think overall that we did a decent step forward. Yesterday, we were frustrated after the quali, because we had the feeling that we didn't put everything together, but the pace was there.”

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23

Photo by: Ferrari

Vasseur insisted the focus had turned quickly to the next race in Azerbaijan at the end of the month.

“It is like it is now,” he said. “We have to take the positives and build up for the next races on this. We had a very good recovery after Jeddah, and the pace was good.

“Carlos was able to extract it, after the first red flag he was able to come back through the field.”

Asked about possible updates for Baku, Vasseur hinted that there might not be a package for a weekend where the sprint format presents extra risk: “Baku is a sprint race, so it's a bit different, but we will have updates all over the season.