Charles Leclerc took Ferrari’s first pole of the season at last weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix, but was unable to keep the much faster Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen behind during the race , as Ferrari quickly dropped tire savings.

Leclerc handed Ferrari a much-needed first podium finish behind the two Red Bull drivers, but his 21-second deficit suggested the Ferraris still had a big gap in the race.

According to team principal Vasseur, the team’s upgrade plan will bear fruit at this weekend’s Miami Grand Prix, with smaller upgrades planned for the upcoming European races.

“We’re going to start bringing updates to the car for Miami and the next few races and we’ll see how the car responds to the update,” he said.

“An update is one thing, but the fact that you’re able to extract all the potential out of an update is another.”

Vasseur didn’t want to be drawn into whether Ferrari’s flaws were purely mechanical or aerodynamic components. While he thinks Ferrari “shouldn’t be bullshitting about its form,” he does feel the car’s more consistent behavior is a step in the right direction.

“In general, they’re faster than us, and we don’t have to kid ourselves,” he said. “And then understanding whether it’s from aeronautical or mechanical is another.

“I think what’s clear so far is that we’re trying to be consistent. This weekend, all the laps, all the corners and the whole race. (But) I think this weekend the car is more consistent and we’re heading in the right direction. direction forward.”

Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari team principal and general manager

Photography: Mark Sutton/ motorsport pictures

One of Maranello’s areas of focus was trying to figure out how Red Bull could gain a huge advantage with its DRS overtaking setup, which allowed it to overtake Ferrari on the straights, while others struggled to overtake in the shortened DRS zone in Baku.

“Obviously one of Red Bull’s strengths today is the DRS effect. We need to understand what they’re doing and I think we’re working on that.

“Compared to last year, we’ve made up some of the gap because it was already there, but we still have a lot of room for improvement.”

Vasseur stressed that F1’s debut in Baku of the new sprint format with just one hour of free practice encouraged teams to implement smaller upgrades at a time and rethink the types of circuits they would be deployed to.

During sprint weekends, with practice so limited, it’s hard for teams to really grasp wholesale changes, and even getting the most out of existing packages is an illusion at best.

While reliability issues completely marred the weekend when Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon made their first major upgrade debuts, the new format took its toll on the Alps and McLaren also found it difficult to recover from its much-loved Look forward to the update to extract the maximum benefit.

“The nature of the weekend meant it was difficult to reach the potential that I thought was there,” admitted Vasseur. “It’s hard to update the car in this form, but it’s the same for everyone, it’s part of the game.

“Indeed, we will have to think about that over the next few races. Monaco is not the best place to develop the car, so we will bring some small updates.

“The format pushes the team to bring small updates rather than big packages.”