Five things Vasseur needs to change at Ferrari

Now that Ferrari has officially announced that Fred Vasseur will start working as team boss from 9 January 2023, it is clear that the outgoing Alfa Romeo boss faces a huge challenge. Here's what the replacement for Mattia Binotto needs to change to bring order to the team.

Decisiveness

Perhaps the biggest problem visible at Ferrari during the past Formula 1 season was indecision. This reared its head in several areas, both during races and at management level.

Strategically, the team often did not know what to do and decided to wait and see, losing podium places on several occasions. For his part, Binotto seemed afraid to intervene when things went wrong and insisted that nothing needed to change within the team. Vasseur will have to bang his fist on the table to put an end to this indecision.

Self-reflection

Related to the above is the team's lack of self-reflection. Under Binotto's leadership, a culture where heads had to roll came to an end, but the other extreme of this is the failure to acknowledge the many misses made within the team.

Vasseur has to make the Scuderia realise that the team itself is responsible for the deterioration that became increasingly apparent and that even allowed Mercedes to become a threat to second place in the final standings.

Strategy

Ferrari's questionable strategic choices were a recurring point of discussion throughout the 2022 F1 season. Here, too, the team's indecision was readily apparent. In its battle with Red Bull, Ferrari too often took a wait-and-see attitude, forcing title contender Charles Leclerc to close at the back of the grid on more than one occasion.

The low point of this was the Monaco Grand Prix, where Leclerc hoped to finally break the curse of his home race from a leading position. Ferrari blundered with the pit stop strategy and deprived the driver of what should have been an easy win.

Things also went wrong at Silverstone and Hungary, and in qualifying in Brazil, the team committed another blunder with tyre choice for Leclerc. This will be one of the first things Vasseur will address, as it cost the team unnecessary points.

Regaining Leclerc's confidence

Had it not been for his team's many blunders, Leclerc would most likely still have had to face Max Verstappen, but it must have hurt his confidence. Whereas teammate Carlos Sainz still sometimes interferes with strategic choices, Leclerc largely trusts his team.

Leclerc needs a decisive strategic team, but also a team that stands behind him. While it had long been clear that the Monegasque was the title contender and, moreover, desperately needed the points in his battle with Verstappen, Ferrari refused to prioritise him. On the one hand, it is commendable that the team did not want to appoint a first and second driver, but on the other hand, by doing so it may have further sabotaged Leclerc's chances.

Vasseur seems the right person to restore Leclerc's confidence in his team. The two have worked together before: Leclerc made his F1 debut in 2017 at Sauber, which was already managed by Vasseur at the time. At Ferrari, they will meet again, so there will already be a bond of trust between the driver and his team boss.

Focus on Sunday

With 12 pole positions, Ferrari overwhelmingly had the fastest car on Saturday. This was a thorn in Red Bull Racing's side, which usually made a move on Sunday but was keen to show that strong form on Saturday as well. At Ferrari, it was the exact opposite, but the team seemed unwilling to compromise a little on Saturday in order to find the ideal set-up for Sunday.

In previous seasons, this approach might still have worked, but as the new rules have made it easier to overtake, it only works at a few races on the calendar. Vasseur will therefore have to address this prioritisation.