The Italian outfit has emerged as Red Bull’s main challenger so far this season, but it has found itself unable to stop Max Verstappen grabbing pole position and race wins at the first two races.
While it is clear that it needs to unlock a chunk of performance before it can think about racing wheel-to-wheel with the world champion squad, Ferrari reckons that delivering on that target is not impossible.
In fact, team principal Fred Vasseur reckons the squad is facing a completely different scenario to last year where the gap it had to the top team meant that any upgrades it delivered would have been “useless” in changing its plight.
Reflecting on the state of play between Ferrari and Red Bull after the first two races, Vasseur said: “I don't want to be pessimistic, because it was a good weekend and we have to be optimistic and we need to enjoy these moments, but it's clear Red Bull is still ahead.
“In quali they have perhaps two, three tenths on us, and in the race a bit more. But it's difficult to estimate because we don't know if they were pushing at the max.
“But the feeling is more positive that, if you come back in this region, you know if you do a step, you can put some pressure on them.
“When we were at one second [behind] it was useless, but now with a good start we can be there, we can fight. I think in Jeddah it was quite easy [for them] to overtake because they had a better top speed - it was a choice - but on some occasions we will have other opportunities.”
Source: Autosport