Lewis Hamilton will move to Ferrari in 2025 after a 12-year stint at Mercedes.
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has his sights set on a match against Red Bull ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s arrival next season.
Hamilton was aiming for his eighth F1 world title and decided his best chance of achieving it was to avoid Mercedes.
The Brit is right in his place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Six races into the 2024 season, Mercedes has about a third of Ferrari’s total points, and Vasseur and others continue to lag behind Red Bull.
Neither Hamilton nor his Silver Arrows teammate George Russell have finished on the podium this year, but Ferrari have achieved six podium finishes this year, with Carlos Sainz also securing the team’s victory at the Australian Grand Prix in March.
And now Vasseur has dispelled any remaining doubts Hamilton may have had about whether he made the right decision to change teams or about the scale of Ferrari’s future ambitions.
“The aim is definitely to be faster than (Red Bull),” he told Autosport.
“It’s not about sitting back and waiting for something.
I think they won easily last year by five or six tenths, so even if they missed the start, it was enough to overtake one car per lap.
Hamilton and Vasseur’s history goes back several decades.
The seven-time world champion drove for Vasseur’s ART Grand Prix F2 team in 2006, long before his cupboard was filled with F1 silverware.
Vasseur has made a positive impression since taking the top job at Ferrari last year.
And he has set his sights on a risk-taking approach that could work in Hamilton’s favor to restore the Scuderia’s former glory.
“I want to take some risks because my competitors are taking risks,” the Frenchman continued.
“I think it’s probably Red Bull’s DNA.
You are at your limit anytime and anywhere.
Everywhere we try to make our corporate culture a little more proactive.
“That’s true, if you want to be on the safe side, give 1 kilometer margin for all subjects, give 2 degrees margin for [wings], give 2 millimeters margin for ride height, everyone.
We’ve got that.
A simpler weekend. But in the end, 3-4 tenths were left on the table[Taking risks] is the direction we should go together as a team.
is.
” I’m the first one to press it.
By the way, I’m the first to admit that I can make mistakes.
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