F1
With only 4 points on his license and close to a suspension, does Verstappen plan to adapt his driving in 2025?
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F1
Vasseur takes risks on 2025 Ferrari: "The car we have in Bahrain will be crucial"
© Xavi Bonilla / DPPI
Ferrari has been on an upward trajectory for the past two years, and the Italian team intends to continue climbing. Third in the Constructors' Championship in 2023, second in 2024, the Prancing Horse has seen great progress since the arrival of Frédéric Vasseur at the helm. This year, the Scuderia was in the running for the title until the last meeting, in Abu Dhabi, but was unable to make up the deficit on McLaren during the season. If the team of Maranello Although he fell just 14 points short of a world crown, the Scuderia director still retains a lot of positives from this 2024 campaign with clear progress compared to previous seasons.
"It was a good season for us, of course there were ups and downs, but with more ups than downs, confides the French leader in an interview given to the official Formula 1 website. We had a better season than in 2023, we are going in the right direction. I think we improved on every aspect of performance, whether it was reliability, strategy, pit stops or pure performance. We got five wins against one [in 2023], we scored 60% more points in 2024 compared to 2023. Everything is going in the right direction.
“Obviously we missed the last step, but when we arrived in Abu Dhabi the percentage of chance of winning [the Constructors' title] was very low, underlines Frédéric Vasseur concerning the duel lost against McLaren in the championship. But it was not in Abu Dhabi that we lost [the title]. It was more in Canada where we had a double zero (double retirement for Leclerc and Sainz, Ed.) and during the summer we lacked it.
« If you don't take risks, you're dead."
In 2025, the Scuderia will try to ride this positive wave and maintain the excellent momentum of the end of the 2024 season. However, in addition to the highly anticipated arrival of Lewis Hamilton At Maranello, Ferrari is expected to enter a completely new car next year, not just releasing a simple evolution of the SF-24. A big risk that Frédéric Vasseur is prepared to take given the rather unique situation in 2025, where all the teams will have to focus very early on 2026 and the introduction of the new technical regulations.
“Everyone is going to take risks. If you don’t take risks, you’re dead, recalls the boss of the Scuderia. We know that developing this car is not easy, because the further we go in the development, the more difficult it is. We also have to take risks because 2025 will be a bit of a strange season: we will have to turn to the 2026 project quite early, which means that the car we put on track in Bahrain will be crucial. We will have to cut its development much earlier than in previous seasons. If you are nowhere at the start of the season [2025], it will be difficult to react. If the 2025 concept fails, then the tifosi could have a very long season next year. On the other hand, if it succeeds, the Scuderia could be in the running for a first Constructors' title since 2008... Double or nothing.
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Dorian Grangier
A young journalist nostalgic for the motorsport of yesteryear. Raised on the exploits of Sébastien Loeb and Fernando Alonso.
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Efi solution
24/12/2024 at 12:12 a.m.
For me, it's a bluff, total bluff. It's one of the weapons of the greatest strategists, in all disciplines, it's well known. Ferrari is not in Formula 1 to make up the numbers and supposedly skip a transition year to bounce back better in 2026: they didn't hire Hamilton supposedly with 2026 in mind... It's just a bluff, quite simply.
Yves-Henri RANDIER
22/12/2024 at 06:52 a.m.
The Scuderia is taking risks with its 2025 single-seater because it is not as developed as its predecessors, a choice assumed by Frédéric VASSEUR who is already announcing "in the background"... a transition season if the single-seater is a failure?
vincent moyet
22/12/2024 at 10:44 a.m.
I don't really understand this reasoning, the opposite would be more logical: start the season with the current good car to know where you are going and only have to develop it to the minimum. I conclude that it must be a bluff and that he is actually trying to push his competitors to take the risk he is talking about. I would be surprised if RBR was fooled...