Ferrari reveal 'game-killer' in Red Bull Bahrain Grand Prix battle

Ferrari

Vasseur reveals Ferrari 'game-killer' in Red Bull Bahrain battle

Sainz finished 48 seconds behind race-winner Verstappen in Bahrain

Sam Hall

Monday 6 March 2023 17:22

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Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has revealed the 'game-killing' deficit the Scuderia suffered against Red Bull at the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Charles Leclerc made the most of his fresh soft tyres saved by not running for a second time in Q3 to jump Sergio Perez in the opening exchanges of the F1 season-opening race.

Such was the straight-line pace of his Ferrari, that the Monegasque was able to fend off Perez until lap 26 when the Red Bull driver executed his move with the aid of DRS.

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But from that moment on, the Ferrari challenge faded - with hopes of breaking Red Bull's stranglehold on the top two positions fading long before Leclerc's eventual retirement on lap 40.

"I think everybody was expecting that Red Bull would be a bit further away in quali and we were there, able to match them in the first 15 laps," said Vasseur.

“For me, this was good news. The fact that they were able to do two softs and one hard when we had to do two hards and one soft, it was for sure a game-killer and we have to improve on this.

“But I would say the first issue for me is the reliability because we have to have zero issues.”

Ferrari 'blind' after testing

Pre-season testing had teased that Ferrari did not have the pace to match Red Bull with Aston Martin also appearing to sit ahead of the Scuderia.

But with fuel loads and engine modes closely guarded secrets across the period, it is difficult to draw firm conclusions on where exactly each team stacks up in comparison.

Suggesting Ferrari's own activities across testing had muddied the picture further, Vasseur added: “After the test, I think every single team was a bit blind on the situation. We played a lot with the level of fuel and the engine mode."