Vasseur reveals Ferrari talks: 'I am not happy'

Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has insisted he does not needthe team's hierarchy to tell him to be upset over finishing thirdin last season's F1 Constructors' standings. Charles Leclerc andCarlos Sainz were forced to deal with numerous reliability issuesin the opening stanza of the campaign as Red Bull and MaxVerstappen ran away with proceedings, leaving the Scuderia firmlyin a battle for second in the order with Mercedes and, at the time,Aston Martin. But the SF-23 soon began to demonstrate pace -Leclerc in particular impressing over one lap while Sainz securedthe only non-Red Bull victory at the Singapore Grand Prix. FerrariCEO Benedetto Vigna had been quoted as suggesting 'second is thefirst of the losers' and asked if there had been any discussionswith the hierarchy over last season's third-place finish, Vasseurexplained: "We didn't wait for the end of the championship todiscuss it but the advantage at Ferrari is that we have dailydiscussions, we are not far away." 'Nobody can be happy with whatwe did' "Nobody can be happy with what we did at the beginning ofthe season," added Vasseur, who joined Ferrari from Sauber lastwinter. "We had too many issues with reliability and I was thefirst one upset with this - and performance. "But I think, morethan everything, that the reaction of group, the reaction of theteam, the fact we were able to... I am not a big fan of statistics,but we had something like five pole positions out of the last eightevents, the fact we were able to fight with Max on some occasionsduring the races also was a good step forward. "Even if we are nothappy - and again, I am the first one, I do not need Mr Vigna or MrElkann telling me, I am not happy with P3, this is clear - but I ammore than happy with the reaction of the team and I think thisfeeling is the same for everybody."