Ferrari boss says he’ll ‘never’ indulge in the ugly ‘game’ of Toto Wolff and Christian Horner’s feud

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has extricated himself from the feuds between Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and his Red Bull counterpart, Christian Horner, admitting he would never play such games.

Vasseur took on the role of team principal at the Scuderia stables in Maranello at the start of the season following the departure of Mattia Binotto. His main job right now is to try and get Ferrari their first world championship since they won the Constructors title all the way back in 2008.

The fight for world titles between Mercedes and Red Bull has been intense in the last few seasons and brought out the best and sometimes even the worst in both Toto Wolff and Christian Horner.

As he looks forward to his first race as Ferrari boss later this week in Bahrain, Vasseur was asked if he would jump into that arena where team principals fight it out among each other in the Italian edition of motorsport.com. He said:

“No, I never will. I have full respect for (Christian) Horner as well as for Toto (Wolff), but I will never participate in that kind of game."

He went on to add:

"I have a friendly relationship with some team principals, and we have joked a bit, but overall there is a great mutual respect, and if on the track the competition makes us even tough opponents, sometimes we have to work together for the benefit of Formula 1 as a whole. I think in recent months, apart from the ‘game’ between Toto and Horner, the collaboration between the teams has been positive.”

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Ferrari SF-23 is 'less draggy' and 'quicker in the straights', according to Charles Leclerc

Charles Leclerc believes the new Ferrari SF-23 is 'less draggy' and 'quicker in the straights' than last year's F1-75.

Ferrari started 2022 strong before their season fell apart as Red Bull ran away with the title. Much of their limitations were down to high levels of downforce, with their heavily sculpted sidepods feeding air to the underfloor Venturi Tunnel, which is critical for all ground-effect cars.

Unfortunately, the Scuderia had no answer for Red Bull's straight-line speed advantage that saw them win 17 out of 22 races last season.

Those shortcomings have resulted in Ferrari changing its philosophy for the 2023 season. Charles Leclerc believes their challenger for this season has what it takes to battle with the RB19.

While speaking to motorsport.com during pre-season, the Monegasque driver was asked if Ferrari's change in philosophy had improved the team's aerodynamic efficiency. He said:

“It did. I won’t go into too much details, but I think that was done in the right way. And I think we have a less draggy car, so that should be better this year. But it changed other characteristics. All in line with what we expected, but we still need to find the right set-up for these new characteristics. I expect us to be a little bit quicker in the straights, maybe struggling a little bit more in the corners.”

Ferrari has been working on this since 2022, which has continued into this season. Leclerc tested with different rear-wing options and even suffered a DRS glitch during the final day of pre-season testing. He went on to add:

“With this three-day test I can say that we are still working quite a bit on track to find the sweet spot of the car in terms of set-up. So, I hope there’s some margin still – that we haven’t found the sweet spot yet.”

Leclerc finished second in the Drivers' World Championship standings after a thrilling final race last season that saw him edge out Red Bull's Sergio Perez.

The 25-year-old will be hoping he can go one better and become the first Scuderia driver to be crowned world champion since Kimi Raikkonen back in 2007.