Frederic Vasseur urges Ferrari engineers to take more risks with their F1 car design for 2024

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur reportedly wants a more risky outtake with the design concept of the 2024 F1 challenger after a tough season in 2023.

The Italian outfit had a difficult start to the last season. Despite the positive development, they fell short of three points to take second place in the championship from Mercedes.

Looking at the future, Vasseur is hoping for the engineers to take more risks on the design part of the car, as reported by SoyMotor.

SF-23, the 2023 car, was an evolved version of the 2022 F1-75. It was an improvement on the limitations of the earlier car. The car still struggled on some circuits, especially the ones requiring high downforce.

Delivering ultimate performance on a single lap, it was in pole position seven times in 2023, but could only win once. This was also the only race to be won by a non-Red Bull car in the entire season.

Heading into the next season, it is apparent that Ferrari would want to work on their design philosophy. Tire degradation has been another highlighted issue over the years, compromising the car's overall competitiveness.

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Ferrari engineer explains how SF-23 hit the ceiling with development in the 2023 F1 season

Despite an abysmal start to the season, the Prancing Horse developed positively enough to remain within the top for most of the Grands Prix in 2023. Later, however, the team hit the ceiling and no further development was possible.

This, as revealed by Enrico Cardile (Ferrari's aero engineer), was because of the limitations of the chassis which was only an improved version of the earlier car.

"All in all, our goal has been achieved because the car on track behaved exactly how it has been developed," Motorsport.com quoted him.

"The problem was that soon, we realized that the direction we took was not the most profitable, so we reviewed internally our targets for the aero development. The first step has been with the spring package, where we changed the floor and bodywork, followed by another step in Austria.

"But then we reached the limitations of the architecture or what we were able to do with the chassis."

This could be another reason why team principal Frederic Vasseur would like to see Ferrari take more risks with the design of the car. To challenge Red Bull at the top, the team needs to get over their current weaknesses, and a lot of them lie with the car design.