Fred Vasseur knew he'd be 'exposed' to pressure as Ferrari's F1 boss. Now he's fighting back

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MONTREAL -- "It's a different pressure. At Ferrari, the pressure is coming more from the outside."

When Fred Vasseur made those comments at Ferrari's annual Christmas lunch for Formula One media in December 2023, he did so while reflecting on his first year in charge of the sport's most famous team.

A long, winding career in motorsport had led him to the top job at Maranello, where he was tasked with returning Ferrari to its former glories. Specifically, ending its long wait for another championship.

He knew it would take time to get everything he wanted in place. Compared to everything else he'd experienced, the scrutiny and demand for success would be that much greater. Ferrari is Italy.

Eighteen months later, Vasseur arrived in Montreal for this weekend's 2025 Canadian Grand Prix, amid the greatest extent of outside pressure yet as Ferrari team principal.

Ferrari has lagged behind pace-setter McLaren, despite falling just seven points shy of the papaya team in 2024's constructors' title battle. In the wake of this difficult and disappointing start to the season, reports in the Italian media this week suggested Vasseur was running out of time to turn things around.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari's star signing for 2025, who relished the chance to work again with Vasseur, a key figure in his junior racing days, emphatically supported Vasseur on Thursday. He called the reports "nonsense" and made one thing clear: "I'm here to win with Fred and he has my full support."

The FIA news conference on Friday was Vasseur's chance to address the rumors exactly where Hamilton had sat the day before. And he showed zero sign of backing down. Ferrari technical director Loïc Serra has also faced similar speculation.

When the moderator first mentioned the Italian reports, Vasseur smirked. "I have to stay calm, because I will have to visit the stewards," he wryly warned in reference to a previous sanction he faced from the FIA for swearing in one of its news conferences. While he did stay calm this time, he made one thing very clear: he was not going to stand for speculation he deemed was destabilizing his Ferrari colleagues.

"It's not about myself, because this I can manage," Vasseur said. "It's more about the people of the team. To throw their names like this, I think it's just disrespectful for them, for their families." Vasseur said he didn't understand the rationale, that perhaps it was "to give s -- to the team." (He noted he wouldn't see the stewards for that particular curse word after the FIA climbdown on F1 competitor swearing.)

But he did admit the stories were "really hurting the team" and suggested that, since the start of the race weekend in Montreal, the noise had been all that had been spoken about. At a time when Ferrari is trying to turn its form around, and the competitive margins remain so fine, this was not energy the team could afford to waste.

"If it's their target to put the team in this situation, they reached their goal," Vasseur said, referring to the writers of the reports that he acknowledged were from "some Italian media, not all Italian media." He added: "It's not like this that we will be able to win a championship. And at least not with this kind of journalist around us."

Vasseur made no attempt to downplay the disappointing start to this year. After gaining so much momentum through the second half of 2024 to run McLaren close for the constructors' title, and with all the fanfare around Hamilton's arrival in January, hopes were the highest they'd been for some time that a first Ferrari championship of any kind since 2008 was within reach.

Instead, Ferrari hasn't looked at all capable of competing for victories. Hamilton's pole and win in the sprint race in China have proved to be an anomaly, not the breakthrough they seemed. The SF-25 car has required an aggressive setup that is hard to get into a good window for peak performance, particularly after its cars were disqualified from the main race in China, due to higher ride height setups the car was not designed for, which were required to get around that problem.

"We didn't do a good job on our side," Vasseur said. "We didn't do a good job the first couple of races. We had a disqualification in (the race in) China." But he did express optimism from the turnaround in recent races, with Charles Leclerc recording back-to-back podiums in Monaco and Spain to help Ferrari overhaul both Red Bull and Mercedes to sit second in the constructors' standings, albeit with just under half as many points as McLaren.

"They are still one step ahead," Vasseur said. "On some occasions this year, we missed opportunities and we didn't do the same level of job as what we did last year. And clearly we need to improve."

Vasseur carries much of that responsibility on his shoulders, and was always braced to deal with the intense criticism from Italy that often accompanies being the Ferrari team boss. "I knew when I joined, when I took the position, that you are exposed," he said. "This, I think, is quite easy to manage."

Being in charge of Ferrari means this comes with the territory -- but he was keen to push back when it concerned the team he was trying to build and those working with him at Maranello.

"These journalists -- I'm not putting everybody in the same basket -- but they have to consider that these people, they have family, they have wives, they have kids," Vasseur said. "And this is completely disrespectful. But now I don't want to speak any more about this."

He sought to draw a line. "Too much is too much," Vasseur said, adding that upon returning to Italy on Monday, he would talk to the wider Ferrari team at its factory and make clear the speculation was untrue, even if he was "not a fireman."

No one at Ferrari would deem the start to this year a success. But there is patience being preached elsewhere. Hamilton has always seen this as a project that would take time to fully realize its potential; his belief still apparently absolute that it can deliver him an eighth world championship. Leclerc, meanwhile, has a long-term contract in place and has been central to Ferrari's future for a long time now.

A word that Vasseur has previously used through his stint in F1 when discussing changes within a team or organization is "inertia." Whenever change is made, it takes time for the effects to be fully felt. It was only at the end of last year that his senior leadership group, including Serra and deputy team principal Jerome d'Ambrosio (an ex-F1 driver himself), fully came together. Getting a group up to speed takes further time still, particularly in the final year of a regulation cycle where resources are extra stretched, with greater opportunities on offer come the car design rules being overhauled for 2026.

Another caveat that Leclerc moved to highlight on Thursday when discussing Ferrari's start to the year was just how much of a step McLaren had taken at the front.

Yes, being second was "not good enough" for a team like Ferrari, but the context of the competitive picture in 2025 versus 2024 was important to consider. "We also need to be careful about everything that is going on around the team, because sometimes that can change the perception of someone's season," he said in reference to McLaren.

"We are absolutely not happy in the situation we are in at the moment. However, I feel like we just need to find ourselves -- just like Mercedes, just like Red Bull. We need to find the outstanding thing that McLaren has found."

The outside pressure that Vasseur always anticipated at Ferrari is really bearing down. But the message in Canada has been unified and strong from the team: the noise cannot continue being a distraction.

Because if it does, and it ends up hindering Ferrari's bid to complete its return to the very top of F1, then the scrutiny is only going to increase. And from more than just 'some' Italian media.