It was also part of the reason Vasseur was so enraged by rumours<\/a> regarding personnel at Ferrari and negative reporting on the Maranello team whilst his own future was being speculated about earlier this year.<\/p>\nWhilst he has now signed on to a multi-year extension with the Prancing Horse, he was livid with not only the standard of coverage Ferrari received over the period, but also the impact it had internally.<\/p>\n
When asked if that episode hurt the 16-time F1 constructors’ champions, Vasseur quickly pivoted, addressing rival teams in the paddock.<\/p>\n
“This isn\u2019t about me,” he responded to Auto, Motor und Sport. “Things like this can cause people in the team to lose focus.<\/p>\n
“Look at Red Bull and what\u2019s happened there in recent weeks. There have only been rumours about Verstappen.<\/p>\n
“And that\u2019s one of McLaren\u2019s strengths. They\u2019ve managed to stay out of all these stories and upheavals.”<\/p>\n
Elaborating on his point, Vasseur detailed how avoiding distraction and minimising the pain of changing drivers was his motivation for making Hamilton’s switch to the team public before the upcoming campaign had got underway.<\/p>\n
Although a difficult experience for Sainz, it was a decision made with the Spaniard in mind, who could acquiesce with the situation and move on.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s why I announced Lewis [Hamilton]\u2019s signing before the season started last year,” Vasseur said. “If I\u2019d done that between Imola and Monte Carlo, many would have gone into panic mode.<\/p>\n
“This way, Carlos [Sainz] was aware of the situation from the start and was able to digest it before it all started. His focus was on his job.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has further explained his rationale for confirming Lewis Hamilton would be joining the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[3007,1687,3010,3008,3011,3009,831,372,6537,832,3006,3005,3004,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-77188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-racing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}