Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur might be feeling the stress amid his crew’s lacklustre begin to the 2025 F1 season, it has been claimed.
That’s the view of Sky Sports activities F1 pundit Bernie Collins, who has steered that the Ferrari crew principal might be feeling the warmth after a vastly disappointing begin to the brand new marketing campaign.
After ending 2024 with the second-fastest automotive and narrowly lacking out on the constructors’ world championship, hopes had been excessive that Ferrari might emerge from the winter as McLaren’s nearest rivals and probably problem for world titles this 12 months.
Lewis Hamilton’s blockbuster arrival from Mercedes solely ramped up the joy surrounding Ferrari however the seven-time world champion has struggled to adapt to this point.
Ferrari have fallen 152 factors again from reigning world champions McLaren after simply six races this season and head into the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix – the primary of two house races for the Scuderia this 12 months – dealing with scrutiny.
“You do really feel it [the pressure]. When he’s driving out and in each night time, will probably be lined with Ferrari followers,” Collins mentioned of the stress surrounding Vasseur and Ferrari at Imola.
“He’ll do extra advertising, extra speaking to visitors, extra sponsors. That brings extra expectation. Individuals like us asking him how he’ll excel.
“We all know what it means for the followers right here. end result right here will carry unhealthy outcomes elsewhere as a result of they may bear in mind this.”
Ferrari as soon as once more seemed to be struggling for tempo over one lap in Friday follow, with Hamilton ending FP2 solely eleventh quickest after being sad with the texture of his brakes.
Lewis Hamilton was solely eleventh in second follow at Imola
Vasseur downplays radio rebuke from Hamilton
Ferrari made headlines for the mistaken causes in Miami final outing and confronted criticism for his or her hesitation surrounding a crew orders name as Charles Leclerc and Hamilton may solely take seventh and eighth.
The crew orders incident pissed off Hamilton who hit out at his crew in a collection of sassy and increasingly-agitated radio exchanges in the course of the race.
Vasseur as soon as once more tried to downplay the scenario forward of this weekend’s grand prix.
“We spoke about it in Miami. It was clear,” he mentioned. “He bought upset. So long as we’re in a position to have a dialogue after.
“They [the drivers] aren’t blissful generally with the end result or the technique or the steadiness of the automotive.”
Requested if Ferrari realized from the saga, Vasseur replied: “We don’t need to study one thing. I took a choice – I feel it was an excellent one – after which we defined the choice to the drivers.
“We checked the tip and the chapter was closed. The chapter remains to be open for you, however not for me.”
Vasseur additionally addressed strategies Ferrari are dealing with elevated stress given this weekend’s occasion takes place in entrance of their adoring Tifosi followers.
“We need to have the identical strategy this weekend as some other one as a result of the motivation is all the time the identical,” Vasseur insisted.
“However we are able to additionally see – even from the storage or from the manufacturing facility – the tifosi in entrance of us, and the truth that they’re all mega motivated, dedicated on Formulation 1 and the venture. And so they can make certain that we are going to push till the tip to get the perfect, to do the perfect.
“We’re all satisfied of this. It’s not completely a problem. You may really feel it from the manufacturing facility the week earlier than, you have already got lots of people across the manufacturing facility. It was like this all week. It was like this yesterday within the fan discussion board.
“Let’s take it as additional motivation and the optimistic facet of this.”
