Ferrari made a splash in the F1 world with its initial results in 2024. However, as the season progressed further, the Scuderia failed to match up to the developments that Red Bull, McLaren, and Mercedes made. A double DNF for its two recruits in Canada worsened things for the Italian team. And at the British GP, Charles Leclerc’s tire debacle highlighted the obvious problem that Ferrari has currently been going through is its mistakes with tire strategy. Now, the team’s leader Fred Vasseur has shared how he wants to focus on correcting things rather than getting caught up in producing more upgrades for the SF-24s.

Till now in 2024, Fred Vasseur’s army remains 71 points shy of taking the top spot in the World Constructors’ Championship. Meanwhile, McLaren needs only 7 points to beat the Scuderia and take second place on the table. At a crucial time like this, any team principal would want to introduce a few upgrades to amp up the performance of the cars. But not Fred Vasseur; the Frenchman believes tire management is what Ferrari needs to look after rather than some ambitious upgrades.

With only two races remaining before the F1 circus takes a summer break, Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur is aware he cannot make any dramatic changes right now. So, he wants to focus on the smaller improvements that can take the Scuderia forward in the fight against Mercedes and McLaren. He spoke to AMuS about this, saying, “There are only small steps to be taken. That’s why it’s become so important that you use the tires correctly. It has five times the impact of an upgrade. It determines the lap times in qualifying more than the car development. But you still have to develop further, otherwise you’ll simply fall behind.”

Since the first step to correcting a problem is being aware of it, Ferrari seems on the right track to solve their woes in this 2024 Championship battle. Now, Vasseur has something to say when he compared the developments that McLaren has made to those that his team has introduced this year.

Frederic Vasseur dispels rumors about McLaren upgrades

At the start of the 2024 season, Ferrari seemed to be the second-best team after Red Bull. But then came the rise of McLaren, as the papaya army repeatedly got podium places, thanks to its brilliant recruits, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. This brought up questions regarding whether the Woking outfit was adding upgrades that were far superior to those the Scuderia could come up with. In response, Fred Vasseur disagreed with this sentiment, claiming there’s nothing that shows his team’s upgrades aren’t working.

Analyzing whether McLaren can outperform Ferrari by producing upgrades for its cars, Vasseur commented, “In Great Britain last year, McLaren finished 25 seconds ahead of us. So I don’t think their development is that much better than ours.” He cited an example from the 2023 season to show that some spurts of speed at a few circuits are common occurrences in McLaren’s playbook. As per the Frenchman, the Woking outfit’s recent podium finishes do not mean that they are performing well in the upgrade field while Ferrari is performing poorly.

At the moment, Ferrari racer Charles Leclerc seems to be in some trouble. The Monegasque has already lost his second place on the World Championship table to McLaren’s Lando Norris. And the fact that Lando attained third place at the British GP two weeks ago while Charles Leclerc stood 14th has made matters worse. So, don’t you think the Monegasque needs to score well in Hungary and Belgium to ensure he remains in the top 3 in the World Championship? Share your take in the comments below.