Fred Vasseur gets support from Pierro Ferrari: "We have to give him time"

Piero Ferrari, the second and only living son of Enzo Ferrari and a part-owner of the Ferrari automotive company, has expressed his faith in the current Scuderia team principal Fred Vasseur.

The Italian businessman believes that Vasseur must be given an adequate amount of time to prove himself as a competent team principal. Vasseur joined the prancing horse from Alfa Romeo after the Maranello-based team dropped Mattia Binotto. Binotto failed to lead the team to success, despite having a faster car initially, against Red Bull Racing.

However, Vasseur is yet to find his team within race-winning distance on the track. Ferrari are currently not in title contention and have lost significant ground to their rivals Red Bull and surprise contenders Aston Martin.

Despite that, Piero Ferrari believes that Vasseur is the right man to take the team back to the top, urging the Tifosi to give the Frenchman some more time. He told AutoSprint:

"We have to give him time to get his hands into problems. He is a person who knows racing well, has been in the environment for years, deserves trust. We need people from different experiences. If we go back in history, when we made real changes in the organization, introducing staff from other teams, the results were seen. We are good at doing certain things, but for others we need specialists who must be taken from outside".

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Ferrari engineer suspects Red Bull giving up one-lap performance for race pace gains

According to Ferrari engineer Jock Clear, Red Bull Racing is willingly compromising their performance in one-lap qualifying to gain an advantage in race pace during the 2023 season.

Red Bull has established itself as the standard-setters in the first five races of the ongoing season. They have emerged victorious in every Grand Prix so far, including the Sprint race in Baku.

Clear suggested that Ferrari could adopt a similar approach to enhance their race pace, but at present, they cannot afford to prioritize race pace over qualifying performance. He told Autosport:

“We have to take our hat off to the Red Bull and say they are doing something very, very clever. That car works very, very well in race pace. We might also conclude that to do so, maybe they are giving up some qualifying pace. That's why we can compete with them because they're not optimal in qualifying.”

Ferrari will be looking to sort out their issues as soon as possible so they can challenge Red Bull in the remaining races and have a fighting chance in the Constructors' Championship.