Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur admits he has a number of races in his mind where 14 extra points could have been scored that might have won the constructors’ championship for the Scuderia.
Lando Norris’ victory in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix ensured McLaren won its first constructors’ title since 1998, beating Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc into second and third respectively. With just 14 points between the two teams at the end of the season — a margin so small that Sainz beating Norris to the win would have given Ferrari the title — Vasseur admits the close outcome risks overshadowing the progress made by the team.
“A good one (season), but not enough,” Vasseur said. “I think that if you compare with one year ago, it’s a huge step forward — pit stops, strategy, reliability… we improved everywhere, even in terms of pure performance.
“It’s true that at the end, 14 points are missing and I think if you are 80 or 100 points behind, you don’t feel the frustration. Tonight, I had tons of races in my mind where we lost 14 points this season, but it is like it is. McLaren also had some issues, and we have to do a better job next year, but I’m also quite proud of the step that we did.”
With Norris leading and Sainz needing to find a way to get ahead of the McLaren to win the title, Vasseur says Ferrari didn’t consider an extra pit stop just to try something different because it wasn’t the highest possibility of improving the result.
“Honestly not, because I think the most important thing is to be focused on yourself and to do the best that we can do. Then, if you stay close, you don’t know what could happen — he could have an issue — and so we are just focused on ourselves and to try to do the best we can.
“The best was the strategy that we did. It was exactly what we didn’t want to do — to change the strategy or to change the attitude, just because we are fighting with McLaren. We were just focused on ourselves from Friday, and I think overall, considering the [Leclerc grid] penalty, the track limits and so on, we did a good job.”
