The reports of Fred Vasseur’s sacking from Scuderia Ferrari have been greatly exaggerated — and the team principal has hit out at the media’s “disrespectful” coverage.

Vasseur has denied reporting from an Italian media outlet that he’ll be replaced, saying “too much is too much.”

Fred Vasseur slams sacking speculation as “too much is too much”

“I haave to stay calm because I will have to finish to the stewards,” Scuderia Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur said during Friday’s FIA press conference during the Canadian Grand Prix weekend.

Earlier in the week, Italian publication Corriere della Serra reported that Ferrari is looking to replace Vasseur in light of the team’s performance struggles.

Nearly everyone at the team — including drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc — has been grilled about the potential swap, and they’ve all had the same response: Vasseur isn’t going anywhere.

But Vasseur may have hit his breaking point in Friday’s press conference as he was bombarded with question after question about Ferrari’s future.

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For Vasseur, the rumours aren’t just untrue — they’re also disrespectful.

“It’s not about myself, I think, because this I can manage,” the boss said.

“It’s more about the people of the team; I think it’s just disrespectful for them, for [their] families. We had the case last year with the chief of aero already.”

Speaking of the goals of the publications behind these rumours, Vasseur said, “I don’t know the target. I don’t understand the target.

“Perhaps it’s to give shit to the team. But in this case, I don’t see the point.

“Perhaps it’s for them the only way to exist. This is probably more the reason, but it’s really hurting the team.

“At one stage, it’s a lack of focus, and when you are fighting for the championship, every single detail makes the difference. And from the beginning of the weekend, we are just speaking about this.

“If it’s their target to put them team in this situation, they reach their goal. But I think it’s not like this that we’ll be able to win a championship, at least not with this kind of journalist around us.”

Asked if criticism is simply a natural part of the role, Vasseur admitted it was, and that he was crystal clear on that fact when he joined. But again, he pointed at the other people on the team and the impact these rumours have on them.

“They are working very hard, and to decide one day that this one will be replaced, this one will be replaced, this one is useless — honestly, it’s very, very harsh,” Vasseur said.

“They have these journalists — and I’m not putting everybody in the same basket — but they have to consider that these people, they have family, they have wives, they have kids, and this is completely unrespectful.

“But now I don’t want to speak anymore about this stupid [topic, ed.].”

Speak more about it he did, though, as the questions kept coming. After being asked about the support he received from drivers Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, Vasseur again deflected attention from himself and back at team personnel.

“They are putting all of their energy; sometimes they’re doing some sacrifice for the family, and so to put names like this on the paper, it’s I think very, very harsh,” he said.

“You have to understand that when [a] journalist is saying that Ferrari will recruit this name for this position, there is someone who is in this position, and the Sunday evening, the guy will say, okay, tomorrow morning I won’t have a job anymore because if what is in the newspaper is true, that I will have someone in my position.

“And it’s the same for all the group working for the guy. We are in this situation on a daily basis now in Italy, and too much is too much.”

Vasseur said he’ll be speaking with the team in Maranello on Monday about the rumours, but “I’m not a fireman at the end of the day. It’s just a matter of respect. We are at this point now that they are able to spread a rumour about someone that I never met in my life.”

Williams team principal James Vowles raised his own mic to weigh in, sensing Vasseur’s frustration.

“Fred is an incredibly good leader, and what you see him doing here in front of you today is, he’s shouldering all of this because that’s what we do, and that’s our job to do it,” Vowles explained.

“His point is actually valid for me. Personally, it’s never caused me grief or upset, but what I’ve seen it do is destroy individuals as a result of one line written by an individual that may or may not know any details behind it.

“It shows you what the power of words are in a positive and a negative sense.”

Clearly this weekend, the negative nature of the words has had an impact — and Fred Vasseur is more than ready for these rumours to pass.

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