Frederic Vasseur says Ferrari still have “tonnes of things to improve” in order to build on their competitive opening to F1’s new era and that he was “very pleased” with Lewis Hamilton’s start to his second season at the team.Ferrari ran championship favourites Mercedes closest during last weekend’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix with Charles Leclerc and Hamilton finishing third and fourth respectively after challenging eventual race winner George Russell early on.
Vasseur said he was satisfied with the team’s step forward in the Melbourne race after difficulties in qualifying but added there was still much for them to get on top of in the early stages of F1’s new-look regulations, with the Chinese Grand Prix – the season’s first Sprint event – quickly next up this weekend.
“We know that we have tonnes of things to improve – on the strategy, on the engine, on the chassis, on the tyres, on everything,” said the Ferrari team principal.”And for the drivers to be used to deal with the car as it is today. If you have the radio of everybody, you saw that it’s quite a challenge. It’s true for us, but it’s true for the others.
“The result will be based on our capacity to improve quickly.”
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Ride on board with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc as they both get a rocketing start off the line in Australia
Ferrari had to wait until the season’s fifth round to secure a Grand Prix podium last season but their early 2026 form both in pre-season testing and Australia has offered the promise of a possible challenge for the world championships.
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has already said “we have a fight on our hands with Ferrari” this year.”The feeling is more positive than something else,” added Vasseur.”We had a tough Saturday [in Australia], I think we didn’t put everything together. We were fourth and seventh, it was quite hard, but we recovered part of this [in the race]”It’s good to have two cars fighting also at the top, and we know that we have a very long list of improvements.
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2026-03-11 15:00:00
