Fred Vasseur: Ferrari need ‘1000 employees’ to beat Red Bull's Adrian Newey

Vasseur: Ferrari need ‘1000 employees’ to beat Newey

Ferrari team principal complimented the work of rival designer in interview with Sky Sports

Shay Rogers

Monday 19 June 2023 10:57 Updated: 13:39

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Fred Vasseur has endured a tough start to his term as Ferrari boss. The team have half the number of points they had at the same stage last season and are without a win in nearly a year.

A wave of upgrades at the Spanish Grand Prix helped to propel Carlos Sainz further up the grid, but Charles Leclerc has failed to make Q3 in his last two attempts – although both showed reasonable race pace in Canada.

When asked about the talent pool available to work on the car by Sky Sports F1, Vasseur emphasised the difficulty of poaching engineers from other countries.

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“It’s not the same situation. You can move from Red Bull to Mercedes and keep the same house, keep the kids in the same school from the Friday to the Monday everything is perfect.

“If you want to come to Italy it’s a different approach. We have to change the family environment and so on,” he said.

F1 not just about ‘big names’

The Maranello based outfit have made multiple approaches to Adrian Newey in the past, and he even admitted himself that he was ‘very tempted’ to join the project.

Newey has always been clear that the chance to design his own road car is high on the list of his priorities at some point in his career.

Despite his success, Vasseur believes that having a strong group is more important than having big name individuals in the team.

“I think we have a good structure. We have to reinforce the team for sure and we are on this way. It’s not just about big names.

“In the big teams today, we are roughly 1000 [employees] and I’m convinced [that] the weight of the group is much more important than the weight of the individual.” he concluded.

While the Frenchman also hinted that the team would be adding some more names to the group soon, they will be hoping that the current crop can improve the car sooner rather than later, as superstar driver Charles Leclerc nears the end of his current contract.