With speculation rife over the future of Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur, former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher says Vasseur is not the one holding Ferrari back.

Shutting down that “rumour” as “not true”, Schumacher claimed that there is a wider problem of things not getting done at Ferrari, with the team having suffered an underwhelming start to the F1 2025 campaign.

Fred Vasseur: The person to take Ferrari back to F1 summit?

Ferrari had been chasing a fresh title challenging after losing out on the 2024 Constructors’ crown to McLaren at the final race, but while McLaren has kicked on in F1 2025 to establish what is already looking like an unassailable lead, Ferrari has regressed.

With just one Sprint victory and three podiums scored for Ferrari so far in F1 2025, the Scuderia sit P3 in the Constructors’ standings, 191 points adrift of McLaren.

And ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, reports emerged in the Italian media that Vasseur’s position as Ferrari team principal – a role he has held since 2023 – is no longer secure.

Meanwhile a report in Germany claimed that Ferrari had approached Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, which PlanetF1.com understands to be accurate –  though Horner, in an exclusive interview with PlanetF1.com, dismissed any idea of a Red Bull departure.

But Ralf Schumacher – six times a grand prix winner in his F1 career – argues that it is not Vasseur alone who is holding Ferrari back.

“There are rumours that Fred Vasseur is the one putting on the brakes, but that’s not true,” said Schumacher on the Backstage Boxengasse podcast.

“In fact, many things are not carried out as they should be, despite being requested.”

Though if Ferrari did ultimately decide that a change of team principal was needed, Schumacher threw a new name into the mix as a successor.

Already Antonello Coletta – Ferrari’s hypercar programme chief – and Flavio Briatore have been linked with Vasseur’s position, but Schumacher thinks the best option would be Andreas Seidl, the former McLaren team principal who recently departed the Sauber CEO role.

However, it would not be a one-man job, Schumacher stresses.

“If I had to choose today, I would take Andreas Seidl,” he said.

“But Andreas Seidl can’t do it alone. He needs structure around him.”

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Vasseur was firm in his calls for this speculation to stop during the Canadian GP weekend, and spoke about the internal unrest which it will cause within the team.

Speaking to the media after the race, Vasseur said: “To close this chapter, because I don’t want to put oil on the system, for myself, when I signed at Ferrari, I was perfectly aware of this, and I can’t blame someone except myself, that if I didn’t want to have this kind of story, it was better to stay out.

“But it’s very, very harsh for the team, for the 1500 people, to have your name spread like this on the press, ‘Okay, you have to change this one’, because it’s not that, just a name or a position, it’s someone with a family will have saw that.

“And now, each Monday, I have people coming in my office, ‘Is it true?’ ‘No, it’s not true. Stay calm.’”

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