Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur should be ‘alarmed’ after what he’s seen at McLaren

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It has been a difficult second season for Frederic Vasseur at the helm of Ferrari having struggled to match the performance gains of their rivals early in the year.

Ferrari headed into 2024 with high expectations that they fixed a lot of the aerodynamic ‘peakiness’ problems faced by Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, but it took a while before they came into effect.

By the time Ferrari had added performance to their car, everyone else caught up and made further improvements. It’s telling that Leclerc’s victory at the Monaco GP was their only win through the period of discontent for Red Bull.

The team ended its seven-race win drought in Formula 1 with Leclerc’s unlikely victory at the Italian Grand Prix, which seemingly put their season back on track.

Ferrari is now 34 points behind of Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship and could legitimately overtake them in the final six races if both Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen continue to struggle.

But while the team could still finish in second and potentially challenge for the win, journalist Nate Saunders believes there is something else that should leave Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur concerned when speaking on the Unlapped podcast.

Ferrari should be concerned about McLaren development

The standout team this year has been McLaren, having produced a car that went from finishing second and 20 seconds off the pace to one that is now capable of winning by the same margin as Verstappen at the recent Singapore GP.

Ferrari has managed to produce a faster car this year and overtaken Red Bull in the development race but has not been able to replicate the gains made by McLaren.

“Fundamentally there is something lacking at Ferrari this season. It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what it is, I’ve been impressed by the leadership of Vasseur, but they have been lost this year. The same with Mercedes,” said Saunders.

“Those two teams came into the year and you thought if either team is going to come close to Red Bull, it will be them. But McLaren has just leaped pass both of them. Ferrari has been left in the dust and you have to ask yourself why that is? Because Ferrari have the same if not better resources than McLaren, so that should be a bit alarming.”

Ferrari faced technical challenges with SF-24

Ferrari’s difficult spell has largely coincided with their problematic floor upgrade introduced at the Spanish GP, which made the car bounce at high speed.

Minor tweaks were made during the run of races between Hungary and Spa, while the team introduced a major change at Monza which appeared to solve their problems.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Scuderia Ferrari from team principal to factory

While they were encouraging for Ferrari, the results are inconclusive so far due to the mix of low downforce and high downforce street circuits, but their form in Azerbaijan showed it was not a fluke.

Their technical leadership suffered a blow earlier in the season with the departure of Enrico Cardile, who joined Aston Martin, which Vasseur filled in the interim before Loic Serra joined from Mercedes.

The hope is that the latest upgrade and restored leadership will put them on the right track for 2025, when Leclerc believes they will be able to challenge for titles.