'The Ferrari is not as hoped, but Leclerc and Sainz are fantastic'

A season with two faces. Although Ferrari did win one Grand Prix (in Singapore), there were plenty of races in which the team was not competitive enough to even compete for the podium. Another deception followed in Brazil: Charles Leclerc crashed out with a hydraulic problem as early as the warm-up lap.

Diogo Ioverno, Ferrari's sporting director for a few months now, has the same mixed feelings as many of the Tifosi have: "Obviously in our DNA there is the need to win. So we are here to try to win the championship. Obviously, we didn't succeed. So we cannot be positive overall." 

Ferrari only draws conclusions later

The Italian does indicate that there were some good performances at certain times: "Sometimes we showed good performance. I think the guys' execution and management of the weekend has been also, in many races, positive. We scored some good points, we won. It is a mixed feeling. It is a mixed bag. We’ll see how it ends up and then we will give our conclusions," Ioverno said.

On the performances of Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, the Italian team's sporting director is not dissatisfied. "Yeah, I think you cannot complain about our drivers. They are super-fast. They work together. They are very involved with the team. They are nice. They know how to behave. It’s really up to us to give them the right car and to execute with them the races and we could get to wherever we need to go. The car has not been always as we would have liked it to be, but nothing to say about the drivers, they are fantastic."

Vasseur's first season almost over

Fred Vasseur's first season as Ferrari team boss is also almost over. The Frenchman had hoped to go for the world title with the Scuderia, but so for now has to make do with that one victory. "Fred is a very direct guy," says Ioverno. "He is straight to the point. He knows the business, knows motorsport. He knows Formula 1. So, it's quite easy to work with him. It’s easy to understand what he wants."

"So it's very efficient like that because you don't have to make your own conclusions, he tells you. He can be also very funny. I don't know, maybe some of you saw videos on our Instagram or whatever of him trying to put Carlos’ face in the cake when we were celebrating. So he knows also how to enjoy but I think it is better not to upset him because I think he can be also hard.."