When Fred Vasseur took the reins at Ferrari in December 2022, he expected challenges—what he didn't expect was the team's own hesitancy to take risks. "The first thing that shocked me when I joined was the gap that we had on every single topic, just because we didn't want to be exposed," Vasseur recently revealed, offering a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the Scuderia.

Stepping in after Mattia Binotto's resignation—a departure that ended nearly three decades of service at Maranello—Vasseur inherited a team with immense history but recent struggles. Ferrari hasn't celebrated a drivers' championship since Kimi Räikkönen's 2007 triumph, and their last constructors' title dates back to 2008. The 2022 season, which promised a title challenge in F1's new ground-effect era, ultimately fell short.

But Vasseur has been quietly transforming the culture. His most notable change? Shifting toward a more relaxed atmosphere at Maranello, encouraging engineers to think boldly. "It's not that there was a culture of fear or blame or whatever, but maybe it was a bit on the back foot," he explained. This new environment has sparked a willingness to experiment—and it's paying off.

Vasseur has been tirelessly convincing everyone at Ferrari that every detail matters. He illustrated this with a powerful example: tiny adjustments—an extra kilo here, half a litre there—can add up to two-tenths of a second per lap. Over an entire F1 season, that's monumental. "You can't be at zero, but between zero and two-tenths there is one-tenth. And if you consider the average between us and the guy in front of us last year was three hundredths of a second, you can imagine the impact of one tenth on the season," he said.

The results are already visible. Ferrari currently sits second in the constructors' standings behind Mercedes, with Charles Leclerc holding third place in the drivers' championship. While Leclerc trails Andrea Kimi Antonelli by 41 points after just four races, the team has its sights set on a title run when F1's 2026 regulations era begins. For fans of the Prancing Horse, the message is clear: Vasseur is building a culture where every decision counts, and the best is yet to come.