Vasseur to miss F1 Austrian GP for Ferrari

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur will not be at Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix after the Formula 1 team announced he had travelled home for “personal reasons”.

The Frenchman will be replaced by Jerome d’Ambrosio on the pitwall in his capacity as deputy team principal.

It comes after Vasseur lashed out at the Italian media during the Canadian Grand Prix weekend, where he said journalists should remember they are dealing with “people and not things”.

This was in relation to reports that some of his squad were under pressure to deliver results, after a disappointing start to F1 2025 in which Ferrari has failed to challenge championship leaders McLaren.

The points were made by heavyweight Italian publications Gazzetta dello Sport and Corriere della Sera, while the impact made by Vasseur engineer Loic Serra, who joined from Mercedes in the winter, was also debated.

Vasseur, whose contract with Ferrari expires at the end of the season, added in Montreal: “You have to understand that when a journalist is saying that Ferrari will recruit this name for this position, there is someone within this position and on the Sunday evening the guy says ‘OK, tomorrow morning I won’t have a job anymore if what’s in the newspaper is true, I will have someone in my position’.

“We are in this situation on a daily basis now in Italy and it is too much. If they want to be successful, we have to be able to work in a clean environment and we are not in this situation.”

Ferrari has offered no further explanation for his absence in Austria, where Charles Leclerc starts in second with Lewis Hamilton in fourth after a positive qualifying session.

A Ferrari statement said: “Fred will not be at the track today, because he has had to return home for personal reasons. Deputy Team Principal, Jerome d’Ambrosio will stand in for him.”