Fred Vasseur has set Ferrari's next target: improving qualifying performance and race execution, after a Dutch Grand Prix where the team's race pace was, in his view, stronger than Mercedes's.
At Zandvoort, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc finished just behind George Russell. Vasseur believes Ferrari's pace was superior but failed to convert it into a better result due to a difficult qualifying and imperfect race execution.
"I think the pace was strong, at least stronger than Mercedes. But it is what it is, we have to have a deep look at what we did and what we did wrong," he told Sky Sports.
A contributing factor was Leclerc's slow getaway at the second start, losing a position to Oscar Piastri around the outside at Turn 1, despite Piastri being on hard tyres versus Leclerc's softs. A slow pit stop later compounded the issue.
Vasseur stressed that pace was not an issue for Ferrari in the Netherlands. Instead, the team struggled to extract performance in Saturday's qualifying. "If we missed something this weekend, it's more the quali first. We had a poor preparation, and the execution was not that good," he explained.
In sprint qualifying, Leclerc took third, just 0.055s off Russell. However, in the main qualifying, both drivers struggled to get temperature into the tyres. Hamilton called the tyres the biggest culprit. "The tyres were the biggest culprit today, just really struggling to get them to work," he said.
Vasseur emphasized that Ferrari's focus moving forward is on qualifying and weekend execution. "We have to focus on the small details that make the big difference," he concluded.
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