Behind-the-scenes details Vasseur using to rule at Ferrari
But, albeit before the first race of the F1 2023 season, Fred Vasseur has earned praise for his start to the challenging assignment.
The new team boss encourages everybody at Maranello to call him “Fred” rather than anything more formal, Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport reports.
He arrives at Maranello every day before 7am and stays for 12 hours per day plotting how to bring Ferrari back to the top of the F1 world.
At least four times per week, the Frenchman is visited on site by an Italian tutor who is teaching him the language.
Vasseur puts this into immediate practice with the engineers and mechanics at Maranello.
Gazzetta, a publication which can be critical of Ferrari particularly through their current barren period, has praised Vasseur for his commitment to the job and for the relationships he has formed within his team.
He is personable and approachable for all the staff, it is reported.
But Vasseur, the ex-boss at Alfa Romeo, will be acutely aware that it will take much more than attitude to redefine the Ferrari F1 team.
The iconic Italian team have not crowned a drivers’ champion since Kimi Raikkonen in 2007.
The heyday of Michael Schumacher in the late-90s and early-00s is now an entire generation ago.
Charles Leclerc started the 2022 season positively but a series of strategy errors cost him the chance to properly challenge Red Bull’s Max Verstappen for the title, and this must be Vasseur’s main goal to change this year.
Vasseur has confirmed that neither Leclerc nor Carlos Sainz will be treated as Ferrari’s No1 driver.
Vasseur is the fifth Ferrari team principal in the past decade and has the weight of expectation on his shoulders.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
