Ferrari team boss takes a defiant stand as the Italian team drops behind Williams in Qualifying at the F1 Miami GP

Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur described the team’s qualifying performance at the Miami Grand Prix as deeply disappointing. In a post-session interview with the Motorsport Network, the Frenchman admitted that the gap to pole-sitter Max Verstappen was far too large to be dismissed, highlighting the scale of the challenge Ferrari currently faces in one-lap pace.

Charles Leclerc could only manage eighth on the grid, lapping nearly half a second slower than Verstappen’s pole time of 1 minute 26.209 seconds. Meanwhile, teammate Lewis Hamilton was eliminated in Q2, qualifying 12th, marking his first failure to reach Q3 in the 2025 season. With a tightly contested field where the top drivers were split by just nine-tenths, Ferrari’s underperformance stood out.

Vasseur acknowledged that both drivers struggled to extract the full potential from the car, even on fresh soft tyres. He pointed out that Leclerc, in particular, lost around four-tenths of a second in the opening sector alone, compromising his overall lap.

The Ferrari boss admitted that qualifying has been a weak point throughout the season so far, but called the Miami result the worst example yet — a moment he described as a wake-up call. He emphasized the need for internal reflection to identify where the team is falling short and how it can close the performance gap moving forward.

Commenting on Ferrari’s underwhelming qualifying session, Vasseur said:

“It was a bad qualifying, we struggled to put together the lap with the new soft. We did the best time with the used tyre and that's not the best way to do well in qualifying. We struggle a lot on the soft and the group is so compact that by losing a couple of tenths you also lose several positions. Since the beginning of the season we struggle more in qualifying than in the race, but today it was too much.”

"Compared to Verstappen, who is the benchmark today, we lose four tenths in the first corners and one tenth in the rest of the lap. Obviously we are not in a good position in those corners, perhaps because of the tyres, and we need to understand what we are doing wrong, but we are certainly doing something wrong.”

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Frederic Vasseur feels that Ferrari has better race pace than its qualifying performance

Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur believes the team has demonstrated a stronger race pace than qualifying performance this season. Reflecting on the team's showing in Miami, he compared it favourably to its performance at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, noting a marked improvement in overall speed.

While Vasseur remains confident in the car’s underlying potential, he acknowledged that the challenge lies in consistently extracting that performance, particularly over a single lap.

He pointed out that Ferrari looked more competitive in the Miami sprint, but the team's qualifying struggles told a different story. The Frenchman stressed that unlocking the car’s full pace remains a key area of focus, with the team needing to translate its race pace into qualifying sessions better as well.

Comparing the qualifying and race pace in Miami to the one in Jeddah, Vasseur said:

“If you look, with the same car last week in Jeddah, we were probably the fastest on track, so it's not a question of potential in this case, but of the ability to extract the potential from the car, because the car was not much better last week. We need to work on that.”

He added:

“It's not ideal what happened, but today Lewis had a great race, it was a good strategy that allowed him to get on the podium. [Sunday] will be another story. Until now, during the season, we have always had a better race pace than in qualifying, let's see what we can do tomorrow. I would prefer to be first and second in qualifying, but it's not the end of the world, we don't know what will happen in the race, the weather is not stable, everything is open.”

Ferrari currently sits fourth in the Constructors’ Championship with 84 points and the team is still chasing its first Grand Prix victory of the 2025 season. The Scuderia trails Red Bull Racing by eight points and is 119 points adrift of championship leaders McLaren.

Lewis Hamilton has delivered Ferrari’s only win so far this year with a sprint race victory in China. The seven-time world champion continues to adapt to life outside of Mercedes, facing challenges in adjusting to his new tools. Meanwhile, Charles Leclerc holds fifth in the Drivers’ Championship with 47 points, with Hamilton close behind in seventh on 37 points.