The one factor Fred Vasseur ‘will never accept’ during Ferrari hiring spree

Henry Valantine 24 Aug 2023 10:15 AM

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has insisted he does not want excuses surrounding waiting for new hires to arrive before they see improvements, believing there is more to be achieved at the Scuderia with who they have in place already.

Ferrari have struggled for pace overall compared to where they were last season, sitting fourth behind Aston Martin in the Constructors’ Championship as the season prepares to resume at Zandvoort, but Vasseur has been in the process of trying to secure talent from other teams as he goes about his aim of bringing a first title back to Maranello since the 2008 Constructors’ crown.

But with Formula 1’s rules surrounding gardening leave making it difficult to bring any experienced people through the door quickly, it will take time to see their impact – but the Ferrari boss believes the team should be doing better in the here and now.

Additional reporting by Sam Cooper

Fred Vasseur: Ferrari ‘can do a better job’ without new hires

Ferrari have been linked with the likes of Mercedes performance director Loic Serra as a part of their hiring spree, withVasseur previously statingthe team are working hard on bringing targets to Maranello in their quest for excellence off-track as well as on it.

While they are still working on bringing in the best people they can from around the paddock to help with the future, that is not stopping the Ferrari team principal from pushing the people at his disposal now to try for better things, with the somewhat unwanted tag of ‘best of the rest’ behind Red Bull still up for grabs this season.

“All the processes in F1 are quite long with a lot of inertia, and when you want to work with people, you have to wait two or three years before to get the result of this because they will join the company in 18 months or two years, they will work on the car of year three,” Vasseur explained to select media including PlanetF1.com ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix weekend.

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“But I will never accept that, to say that we have to wait for these guys to get an improvement, because also I trust the people that we have in the team.

“We need to improve, but we can do a better job with what we have today – and we have to be focused to try to get the best of what we have.

“这是下一个挑战,我们有很多room for improvement with the current situation, and I don’t want to postpone any target or something like this because this could be the wrong message, the wrong motivation.

“There is not a before and after, this is the life of the team. We have to improve on every single area, but even when these people will join the team, we will continue to have the same approach and the same wish to develop and to improve.”