The 2024 championship ended just over a week ago, but the factories are already working towards next year, albeit these are the last working days for everyone. Teams will then have to interrupt factory activities for nine consecutive days, with the mandatory break (similarly to what is done in the summer) ending in the first days of 2025, although many members of the Ferrari team will return to Maranello on the 7th of January. The Italian team wanted to end the year with the classic Christmas lunch, where Vasseur summed up what can be considered a good year for the Prancing Horse.
Vasseur: “2024 is a year that leaves me with mixed feelings.”
It is well known that the season ended on a positive trend, with Charles Leclerc even being the top points scorer in a hypothetical post-summer break driver championship. However, Fred Vasseur wanted to tone it down as Ferrari are even being considered a favorite for this reason. “When you have four teams in one or two tenths, the fact that we were in good shape in November will not affect the outcome in Melbourne 2025. It will be a new fight and a new championship”, the French TP told selected press, including AutoRacer, and continued by analyzing the good and the not-so-good from the recent season.
“I definitely have a bit of mixed feelings about 2024: I think we took a good step forward from last year, but we didn’t win the constructors’ championship by only 14 points behind McLaren out of 600 points scored.” – Vasseur said. “As a team, we improved in every area: reliability was better, the strategies were good, pit stops were good, and the performance was there. We scored 60% more points than last year, and we were able to achieve five wins against one.” However, there is an obvious sense of regret for not winning the constructors’ title; Vasseur revealed that there was “some frustration” within the team on the night of Abu Dhabi but also explained that the world championship was not lost at the last Grand Prix. “We didn’t lose the world championship in Abu Dhabi, where we scored more than the 26-27 average points Mclaren has scored in the season. I’m more focused on Canada, with the double zero, or the summer period when we struggled a bit because in a four-race period we lost something like 80 or 90 points to McLaren.”
The 2025 Ferrari will be unveiled on February 19th in Maranello
There is no doubt that last season was the most spectacular year of the new technical regulations, with as many as 7 different drivers hitting the jackpot and four teams climbing to the top step. “This year we had four teams capable of achieving a 1-2 and when you can get that result it means you are dominating. That means four teams have been in that situation during the season” Vasseur said, admitting that the start of the season did not anticipate anything like that. “After three races I think everyone was convinced that Red Bull would win easily. And I think the most important lesson from this year is that the season is very long, with ups and downs if there are four teams fighting. You can have a good weekend while the other team is seventh and eighth, like at one point in the season where our positions were more the sixth and seventh rather than top positions”, the French engineer admitted.
There was a lot of anticipation around possible announcements related to next year’s car, and the French manager did not disappoint by announcing that the 2025 Ferrari F1 car will be unveiled in Maranello on February 19th. “The day before, we will be in London for F1’s launch of the season, then we will return to Maranello where we will present the new car”. Vasseur confirmed that the first kilometers of the new Rossa will also be driven on the same day of the presentation. The car will participate in a rather tricky season, the last of these technical regulations before F1 moves to a new concept of cars from 2026 onwards with a rather significant revolution both chassis and engine. “2025 will be a bit of a challenge because at some point we will have to make a decision, whether to continue developing the current year’s car or switch to 2026. The normal way to handle it is that we all switch in the summer period to next year’s project. Now, for sure, since the regulations will totally change, everyone will have to anticipate this switch”, Ferrari Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur added, referring to the fact that each team will start working on their 2026 challenger from January
“To know whether you have to anticipate a lot of the work or not, that will be dictated by the outcome of the 2025 project. There are some teams, probably in the middle of the pack, for which it will be easier to move with the whole budget to 2026 but if you’re fighting for a championship, and you can make the comparison with 2021 when Mercedes and Red Bull were fighting and one of the two teams brought updates even in the very last part of the season. That means one month before, two months before, they were still in the wind tunnel with the 2021 car. But we think we will push until the last corner of the last race.” Vasseur ended, positively thinking about the scenario that would see Ferrari fighting for the world championships until the last race.
