Despite Ferrari’s fastest time: Fred Vasseur expects a lot of headwind in qualifying

With the upgrade package that Ferrari had put together for the World Championship round in Austin, the Scuderia sparked debate even before the start of the Grand Prix weekend. Charles Leclerc reassured journalists that the expected improvement would not be significant – and explained after Friday’s practice sessions that this assumption had been confirmed.

Nevertheless, the Monegasque driver set the fastest lap in each of the first two practice sessions. His team-mate Lewis Hamilton was sixth fastest in the first practice session, whilst the seven-time champion finished the second session in fourth place. The Briton attributed the fact that he was more than six-tenths of a second off his team-mate’s best time to the different car set-up he had chosen.

Team principal Fred Vasseur spoke of a good start, but also emphasised straight away: “It’s very, very close, and I’m not sure how much the practice times tell us about qualifying. So we simply have to keep focusing on ourselves and carry on with our work.”

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur: Attention to detail is key

“There’s still a lot to learn about the car with the new package, and we’ll try to keep improving,” cautioned the French engineer. “It’s still very early to pass judgement on the changes, and we’re all now at a stage where the updates we’re bringing in yield slightly less of a time gain than they did at the start of the season. So we need to work on the details to ensure we get the most out of qualifying,” he continued.

The 58-year-old expects plenty of competition in the final practice session. When asked whether victory was the only possible goal, he said: “Let’s see how things go in qualifying. Because as soon as you stray from the ideal line on this circuit, it gets trickier. I also believe we have five or six cars in the field that can fight for pole position. That’s good for Formula 1, and it’s good for us to be right up there at the front.”

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