For expert Marc Surer, Ferrari is one of the losers of the first half of the 2023 season – The Swiss is surprised that there has been no real progress in Maranello
After finishing the 2022 Formula 1 season in second place in the World Championship behind Red Bull, the Scuderia is only fourth in the 2023 World Championship at the summer break. Besides the Bulls, Mercedes and Aston Martin also currently have more points on their books.The expert says about Ferrari that he actually expected “them to learn from their mistakes.” But that obviously didn’t happen.
The car is slower than before and there are no bright spots either,” Surer says, recalling that Ferrari 2022 may have had problems in the race but was at least fast in qualifying. In fact, the Scuderia still took twelve poles last year, Red Bull only eight.
By the summer break in 2023, however, Red Bull is clearly ahead in this balance with 9:2 – not to mention the twelve race wins of the Bulls. “Now they have managed to be nowhere fast,” Surer therefore smirks with regard to Ferrari.
“They’ve probably made the car more balanced now, but lost the speed a bit in the process,” he believes and explains: “That the people who are there, who built the super car last year, can’t manage it now, that surprises me a bit.”
He suspects one reason for this is the atmosphere behind the scenes in Maranello. “I only know from insider circles, from people who were at Ferrari, who say: the people there all work with fear.” Surer believes that engineers are “held back” by this climate.
In principle, the new team boss Frederic Vasseur is “the right man” to bring Ferrari back to the top. But he also needs new staff, and he has the problem “that nobody really wants to go to Italy”, the expert believes.
Because in England, where most Formula One teams are based, there are enough jobs for talented engineers. Surer therefore asks the question: “Why should someone who has a family move to Italy now? The motivation must be very, very great.”
Either way, he considers Ferrari to be one of the disappointments of the first half of the 2023 season.
