Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur says team ‘won’t change approach’ despite disappointing start to 2025 F1 season

Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur insists his team won’t change their approach despite a disappointing opening three rounds of the 2025 Formula 1 season.

Charles Leclerc’s fourth and Lewis Hamilton’s seventh in Japan marked Ferrari’s best Sunday of 2025 so far but leaves them 76 points behind McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship.

A double disqualification in China appears to have forced Ferrari to run their car higher than wanted, thus hurting performance.

Leclerc feels he “maximised” his race weekend at the Japanese Grand Prix by starting and finishing fourth but says it’s “not great” to still be 16 seconds behind race-winner Max Verstappen.

Vasseur said: “The last two years we started like this. But we don’t have to change the approach. One year ago we were almost in the same situation, perhaps a bit worse in terms of pace, and the reaction of the team was very, very strong.

“We worked as a team, we made small steps by small steps and we have to keep exactly the same approach this season. For sure it’s not ideal and I would prefer to win the first two or first three races.”

Vasseur also referred to Ferrari being off the pace 12 months ago before coming back to win five races and missing out on the constructors’ title by just 14 points.

He says there is no “magic bullet” and it will likely require Ferrari to improve in multiple areas by a few hundredths of a second.

“We were six tenths off on average last year, and we were able to come back during the season,” added Vasseur.

“We need to keep the same approach. It doesn’t matter the gap, it doesn’t matter the results of today, we need to try to do a better job next week to improve the potential and also the extraction of the potential of the car. We have to improve everywhere.”

Hamilton: A lot of work to close the gap

Hamilton has scored just 15 points in his first campaign as a Ferrari F1 driver and hopes of a record-breaking eighth world title this year are quickly diminishing.

The 40-year-old revealed after the Japanese Grand Prix that an element on his car is “underperforming” but suggested it is not on team-mate Leclerc’s.

Hamilton says Ferrari need to improve “everywhere” but is optimistic about a more competitive weekend in Bahrain, where the slower speed corners and long straights should suit their car.

“It will be interesting. I just hope we are a bit closer,” he said.

“We were probably the fourth fastest in Japan and we are a bit off in terms of downforce level wise, so we have some work to do to close the gap.

“We will slowly progress the car. It will be interesting to see when people get upgrades over the season. We have a lot of work to close the gap to the top guys, who probably three or four tenths on us so we have a lot of work to bring upgrades for that.”

Sky Sports F1’s Bahrain GP Schedule

Thursday April 10

2pm: Drivers’ Press Conference

Friday April 11

8.50am: F3 Practice
10am: F2 Practice
12pm: Bahrain GP Practice One (session starts at 12.30pm)*
1.55pm: F3 Qualifying
2.40pm: F2 Qualifying
3.35pm: Bahrain GP Practice Two (session starts at 4pm)
5.15pm: The F1 Show

Saturday April 12

11.10am: F3 Sprint Race
1.15pm: Bahrain GP Practice Three (session starts at 1.30pm)
3.10pm: F2 Sprint
4.10pm: Bahrain GP Qualifying build-up
5pm: BAHRAIN GP QUALIFYING
7pm: Ted’s Qualifying Notebook

Sunday April 13

10.50am: F3 Feature Race
12.20pm: F2 Feature Race
2.30pm: Bahrain GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday
4pm: THE BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX
6pm: Bahrain GP reaction: Chequered Flag
7pm: Ted’s Notebook

*also live on Sky Sports Main Event

Formula 1 continues its triple-header in Sakhir for the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW – No contract, cancel anytime

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