(Motorsport-Total.com) – Ferrari was for a long time this year the only team that could seriously threaten Mercedes in the fight for race wins: Lewis Hamilton triumphed at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, while teammate Charles Leclerc won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone.
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Nevertheless, the gap in the constructors’ championship has now grown to 87 points, mainly due to Scuderia’s conversion of opportunities. Because in both Hungary and the Netherlands, Ferrari failed to convert the car’s potential into corresponding results.
On the twisty track in Budapest, which should have actually suited the car’s strengths, Ferrari was quick in practice and Hamilton narrowly missed pole position. But a bad start, followed by a penalty and a slow pit stop, meant that neither the Briton nor Leclerc stood on the podium.
In Zandvoort, the team felt they had given away performance in qualifying after the tires were not in their optimal operating window. Further chances for a podium were lost in the race as well – on another track that should have suited Ferrari and masked the weakness of the powertrain.
Ferrari team principal admits: “We missed opportunities”
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur therefore knows that Ferrari must not leave any more chances behind in the second half of the season if the Italians really want to catch Mercedes in the fight for the world championship and at the same time keep a resurgent McLaren team at bay.
At the same time, the Frenchman points out that the Scuderia has already made great progress in recent seasons. “Honestly, I think we have improved enormously in execution over the past two or three years. In terms of strategy and pit stops, we are doing a good job,” says Vasseur.
“Especially in the last two weekends, we missed opportunities, but I’m not sure if we’ve missed more chances since the start of the season than McLaren or Mercedes,” ponders the Ferrari team principal in an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com, a sister platform of Motorsport-Total.com in the Motorsport Network.
“But if you want to be champion, you can’t leave points behind. We have to get the maximum possible points.” After all, Ferrari has introduced an impressive number of developments in recent weeks and months.
Frederic Vasseur: Ferrari must “minimize these mistakes”
For the home race this weekend in Monza, further aerodynamic parts and a revised engine are expected. But because the field is getting closer and closer in terms of pure performance, Vasseur believes that a clean execution of race weekends is becoming increasingly important.
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“You have two races. You have the development race: From race to race you bring new parts to improve potential. But then you also have to work at the limit of your potential,” he explains. “Sometimes you do well, sometimes not.”
“This season is challenging because everything is new. The rules, the energy, the tires – everything is different from last year. That means we have a lot more new questions on the table than last year, and that’s why we all make more mistakes.”
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“But my job is also to minimize the number of these mistakes,” admits the Ferrari team principal his own responsibility for the problematic conversion of opportunities. “It doesn’t matter what the others do – we have to minimize these mistakes.”
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While teams and constructors now better understand the complex power units of 2026 and the nested regulations for their use, optimizing energy deployment can still make a huge difference.
“The powertrain is the key. From one lap to the next, there can still be big performance fluctuations,” warns Vasseur. “It’s significantly less than in China or Australia, where we sometimes lost four or five tenths.”
“Now we lose one or two. But that’s four positions on the grid in Zandvoort. That means we still have to focus on it.” In fact, Hamilton and Leclerc were less than four tenths of a second behind Lando Norris’s pole time in Zandvoort.
“I think it has more to do with this being a new area of the regulations and a difficult year. But it is definitely one of the team’s focal points.” In the drivers’ championship, Lewis Hamilton is currently in third place – 59 points behind championship leader Kimi Antonelli.
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