Frederic Vasseur Dismisses Outrageous Upgrade Claims as a “Joke” to Give Tifosi a Brutal Reality Check

Ferrari has been the most successful team in the history of Formula 1, but in contemporary times it hasn’t been living up to its historic hype. The blunders made by the Italian team in 2022 seemed more like rookie mistakes. Despite having a significantly faster car, the team lost out on both championships. The recent appointment of Frederic Vasseur does seem promising, but he is not making any promises about the upgrades for the forthcoming season.

As a part of regulations, engine manufacturers in the sport won’t be allowed to make any significant changes to their power units until 2026. This development freeze allows teams to make changes to their engines and hybrid systems only to address reliability problems. Ferrari became synonymous with reliability issues amongst the top runners. There have been speculations of a power gain for the Maranello outfit with a value of 30bhp. However, the new team principal thinks of it as a joke.

As quoted by GPFans, refuting the conjectures, Vasseur said, “I don’t know where the numbers are coming from but it’s just a joke. We’ve made some steps but it’s just about reliability. The performance of the engine last year was not an issue at all. The issue was reliability, and the first target is to fix it.”

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Acknowledging is the first step towards improvement. By admitting that reliability was an issue amongst others, the team may have made steps in the right direction.

Frederic Vasseur admitted that reliability was hampered due to porpoising

The world saw Mercedes suffer from horrendous porpoising during the 2022 season. So much so that it almost became a health hazard for drivers. While the Silver Arrows were vocal about it, the other teams were not as much. But Fred Vasseur has made recent admissions that indicate that Ferrari suffered because of the same issue.

The Frenchman said, “There were a couple of issues the team suffered, and it’s not just true for Ferrari. In terms of reliability, it came from bouncing, vibration.” To answer if they have combated the same, he said,“.. and everybody will have a much better picture in Bahrain in a few weeks’ time.”

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While the teams may be sandbagging in Bahrain testing, the real picture, more or less, will be made clear in less than a month’s time.