F1 | Alfa boss Vasseur hopeful Ferrari will recover ‘’a large part’’ of engine deficit
Alfa Romeo’s team principal believes they’ve made a good step forward in developing what they can on the 2021 package.
2020 was a year to forget for Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen. After winter testing suggested they would be towards the back of the field, it was confirmed through the course of last season. They scored just eight points across the 17-race campaign.
As well as problems with their car, they also paid a heavy price for Ferrari’s misdemeanours and were down on power in the horsepower department compared to the likes of Williams. It left them particularly vulnerable in qualifying.
Nonetheless, Alfa boss Frederic Vasseur believes Ferrari will recover a large part of the deficit and the collaboration with the Italian giants is getting better all the time.
"The collaboration with Ferrari is going very well," said the 52-year-old to the official Formula 1 website.
"We had a strong meeting, a long meeting during the winter, to cover the points of last year where perhaps we didn’t do the perfect job. But we are on the good path."
"I think on their side, they will recover probably a large part of the issues we had last year. The collaboration is getting better and better."
The Frenchman says the most important part of the tie-up between the two teams is that they learn from each other and it benefits them both.
"We want to take some of their stuff – perhaps one or two elements, but not much more; I think it's not the key point of the collaboration," Vasseur continued.
"The key point of the collaboration is to be convinced that we can learn from each other in the scope of the regulation, and we have to play with this and to do the best job that we can do."
Despite heavy limitations on what can be developed on the 2021 car, Vasseur says they’ve made good improvements as they seek to get back into the midfield fight during the upcoming season.
"Even if we have some restrictions and changes to the regulations, we still have some freedom to develop the car on the aero side, and we did it," added Vasseur.
"But it doesn't matter if you have developed the car – you have to do a better job than the others. We did some good improvements; the FIA decided to change the regulations to slow down the cars, and I think that we came back at a decent level."
