Jerome D’Ambrosio stepped in for Fred Vasseur after the Ferrari team principal had to return home for personal reasons which prevented him from attending Sunday’s race at the F1 Austrian GP.
Scuderia Ferrari had their strongest qualifying of the season on Saturday, with Charles Leclerc grasping an amazing P2, while Lewis Hamilton took a very solid P4.
This meant they had one driver lined up on the front row, while the other occupied the second row, which put them in a good spot for Sunday’s race.
On Sunday, the Monegasque raced his way to a quiet but solid P3, marking his fourth podium of the season. Lewis Hamilton managed a strong P4 finish, making it the strongest finish the team has had this year in a Grand Prix.
Maximised the result
The Deputy Team Principal was asked in his print media session how much of their result was an indication of a step forward and how much was due to the other team’s not being as strong as they usually are. D’Ambrosio expressed that while it is difficult to know where the other teams are, Ferrari were happy they could maximise their own performance.
“It’s always difficult to know what the others are doing and why they’re performing or not performing. The thing we can do is focus on ourselves and if you look at our weekend, from Friday we put it together. We maximised what we had. We did bring a package on track that did what it was supposed to do which is always a good start and always an important point.
“How much of that changes the whole result or not versus actually putting it together and maximising what you have at hand is always difficult to say but we did that. We had a pretty strong qualifying and we put it together compared to what we’ve done in the last few races and obviously, when you get the Saturday right, Sunday gets easier as well.”
Chances of attacking the McLarens
Although Ferrari gave everything to deliver their best overall race result of the season, the gap to the McLarens ahead is still significant. With a gap of half a second in Qualifying, and an almost 20-second gap in the race, McLaren are still miles ahead.
When the Deputy Team Princpal was asked if he was surprised the race pace was so far off the McLaren’s on Sunday, D’Ambrosio expressed that the team tends to focus on their own performance.
“I tend not to go into races with too much expectations one way or the other. This year is really important, if you look at the best example is Mercedes last weekend to this weekend. A small nothing makes a big difference so what we’ve got to do is optimise, focus on optimising what we have and focus on being better tomorrow than what we are today.
“Then the result is the result. We cannot affect that, we can only affect the process and this is what we’re trying to do at the track in the background, and hopefully that is what’s going to move us forward. But yes, clearly McLaren was at a really strong pace today,” he explained.
The Scuderia Ferrari team brought a floor upgrade for the Austrian GP, which appeared to have aided the team in moving forward, even though there are still more upgrades to come. This small step forward might have helped the team secure a strong qualifying this weekend. However, as McLaren is still strongly dominant, the Ferrari team will continue to focus on their development in order to make a bigger step in the right direction and hopefully challenge the Papaya team later this season.
