Vasseur not scared of Ferrari pressure

Ferrari’s newest team boss, Fred Vasseur, has said he is not scared of the pressure that comes with his high-profile role.

Vasseur has replaced Mattia Binotto who opted against continuing with the organisation with whom he’d worked for nearly three decades.

Ferrari was a contender for both drivers’ and constructors’ championships last season but ultimately fell short of both.

A combination of on-track mistakes, operational errors, and unreliability crippled those hopes as Max Verstappen secured a record 15 wins in a season to take his second drivers’ crown.

It is into that furnace that Vasseur has willingly gone, having been poached from his former role as CEO of Sauber Motorsport – a position which at the time encapsulated the team principal job for Alfa Romeo Sauber.

“I think that clearly there is more emotion, passion, and so on around Ferrari, but at the end of the day, I think all the racing teams are similar,” he explained of the differences between the two teams.

“We have the same DNA. It’s all about technique and performance, and continuous improvement.

“The approach is the same, passion is a bit higher but it’s okay.”

Pre-season testing was promising if unspectacular from Ferrari, suggesting it would again be somewhere towards the front but probably short of Red Bull.

That proved to be the case in Bahrain at the opening round, with the added variable of an engine failure for Charles Leclerc.

“At the end of the day, for sure the expectations are different,” he said in comparison to his role at Sauber.

“What we are doing, it’s much more visible for everybody.

“But honestly, I love the pressure and the target is to win, and now it’s a dream.

“I am very keen to have this kind of target and this kind of motivation every day,” he added.

“I think that the team is used to [dealing with it], honestly and I’m not scared at all about this.”