'One tiny mistake costs everything': the signs F1 is nearing level playing field

In a season where Red Bull has won every race so far, that might seem a strange comment to make, but the dominance is in results first and foremost, and in execution. Red Bull has so rarely dropped the ball — Sergio Perez in Australia was a team effort, but his crash in Monaco was all his own work — which means the chasing pack might be little more than a few tenths off at many venues but they aren’t offered a chance to take advantage of it in an era where overtaking is very much possible at most circuits.

It was along those lines that Vasseur was speaking on Tuesday. The Ferrari team principal retains a positive and laid-back attitude when speaking to the press, often laughing at his own jokes during answers. But one comment about the team being at risk of being fifth-fastest behind Alpine at times did irk him.

“I don’t know if you are tough like this with Mercedes when they are behind us in qualifying,” Vasseur said when asked if he’s concerned at appearing to be fourth or fifth-quickest in races. “At the end of the day we were P3 in qualifying, less than one-tenth off the pole position, two-hundreths off the front row. I don’t think it was a disaster.

“I think we made some mistakes throughout the weekend, team and driver together, but to say the pace was not there in Monaco, I think it’s a bit harsh for us. We were in a position to fight for the pole position and starting from the pole I think the win was possible.”

For a team that was also on pole for both Baku races, it’s true that there has been some very impressive pace. But there have also been just four top-five finishes, while Mercedes on the other hand has had seven.

And it’s the results that have been lacking the most. Much like the Alpine criticism that was fired off from Laurent Rossi, it’s not down to a lack of effort or a poor car, but more specifically costly errors. Poor reliability in the opening race robbed Charles Leclerc of a podium, while Carlos Sainz similarly lost out on a good return in Melbourne when he made contact with Fernando Alonso late on. Leclerc’s crash in Miami was followed by a Monaco race where the team cost him three places on the grid with poor communication in qualifying, and then Sainz hurt his own chances by picking up damage against Esteban Ocon before sliding off in the wet as Ferrari mistimed its pitstops.

Some of those mistakes were very small, but had big consequences. Just as with George Russell who headed straight on at Mirabeau after his pitstop on Sunday and saw third place become fifth in the blink of an eye.

“It’s very disappointing when you do everything right for 98% of it but that one tiny mistake costs everything,” he said afterwards.

They’re so costly because of the level of the field under the cost cap. It might not have given everyone a chance to win, but half the field already has a podium and all on merit. Ocon could’ve seen Russell jump him in Monaco but got his reward for a stunning qualifying lap that had him in the mix for pole position.

And while McLaren has yet to pick up any silverware itself this year — in fact looking far from it due to a underwhelming car — its signing of Marshall actually provides a perfect example of just why there are so many teams that can come in for criticism at different times for their results not being good enough.

The cost cap has had the desired effect of slimming down the traditional big three and providing the rest of the pack with a realistic ambition of fighting at the very front. Aston Martin was of course helped by huge financial investment, but it was able to attract top personnel who have already delivered a major step forward this season, and with Honda’s partnership from 2026 it will be as big as any rival.

McLaren has similar designs, with its new wind tunnel set to come online alongside other investment, and its own roll call of highly-rated personnel — including Marshall and David Sanchez from Ferrari — heading to Woking to work under Andrea Stella.

It is able to attract someone like Marshall, a name that one McLaren team member admitted “I think he’ll be a game changer for us”, and Red Bull paid a classy tribute to, adding “his influence will be missed” – because there is little to stop any team from aspiring to reach the top in the medium-to-long term in a way that there wasn’t prior to the cost cap. And by such high-quality names moving around, they give faith to others that the future might be bright at a team not currently winning races.

The cap still has its flaws, with some teams wanting to be able to invest in infrastructure to help catch up rather than have to choose between facilities and car performance in a manner that could bake-in the current advantage others have. But they’re flaws that, so far at least, have been discussed and in many places addressed, with exemptions for factory and wind tunnel investment. It doesn’t feel like trying to keep the playing field as level as possible is off-limits.

And a level playing field hardly feels far away, when you get a qualifying session in Monaco that sees the likes of Williams end up with two drivers split by just 0.4sec in Q1, yet seeing one progress third overall and the other eliminated.

“F1 is so tight today,” Vasseur also said. “I had the debrief before and we were speaking about it… You can’t say anymore that you will go easily into Q2. We have to do a lot of laps, we have to push in Q1 and it’s even more true in Q2. I remember a couple of seasons ago the top teams were doing Q1 with the mediums easy, and we’re not in this situation anymore.”

So when Vasseur complains about negativity, I understand where he’s coming from. But the reality is that’s just because of the standard that all the teams are being held against in modern F1. And while nothing changes overnight, many teams are showing they can attract the quality of people that could help those standards get even higher.