Ferrari draws a sobering conclusion to the first half of the season, yet Charles Leclerc also sees positive signs: Is tyre management getting better?
Charles Leclerc draws a sobering conclusion after the first half of the 2023 season: “It didn’t go well,” says the Ferrari driver about the first twelve races this season. After finishing second in the World Championship last year, the Scuderia wanted to attack the World Championship title this year, but instead they currently only find themselves in fourth place.
“Before the first race, the goal was to be one step better and win the world championship,” he says. “But if we look at the first half of the season, we are very far behind our expectations.”
The Maranello team is currently 312 points behind Red Bull – more than a world (go to World Championship standings). No one has a chance against the Bulls, who have won all the races so far, in 2023, but Mercedes is also already more than 50 points ahead of Ferrari. And even Aston Martin has outstripped the Scuderia this year.
There have only been three podium finishes this year: in Baku, in Spielberg and in Spa-Francorchamps – in other words, all three sprint events. Mocking tongues are already saying that it’s because Ferrari, with only one practice session, doesn’t have enough time to develop the set-up in the wrong direction.
But that also means that even without Red Bull, Ferrari would only have won three races this year. But that’s not the worst of it: like most other teams, Ferrari’s form fluctuates wildly from race to race.
Sometimes hop, sometimes top
The race at Silverstone was particularly disappointing, when both Ferraris only finished ninth and tenth on their own merits – behind the Williams of Alexander Albon. And in the following race in Hungary, too, there were only seventh and eighth places.
“We still have to understand that. We expected to be much stronger in Budapest than on a track like here in Spa, but in the end it was the other way round,” puzzled Leclerc. “We’ll have to look at that, because maybe we didn’t optimise the package when we raced Budapest, and maybe we managed something surprisingly good here. “
Because Spa was again an upward trend for Ferrari. Leclerc was able to finish third behind the dominant Red Bulls and beat at least one of them in qualifying.
“It’s good to end the first part of the season on a positive note and now we will take the time in the summer break – when the guys can get back to work – to analyse the last two races and hopefully maximise the package for all the races in the second half of the season,” said Leclerc.
Tyre degradation under control?
An important factor then is likely to be whether Ferrari get their tyre problems under control. On Saturdays, the SF-23 was usually good, but on Sundays Ferrari usually fell behind due to high tyre degradation, except when the conditions were right.
Things went better again for Ferrari at Spa, but Leclerc wouldn’t say they now have their problems under control: “I think it’s a bit early for that, but it’s been two or three races now where we’ve managed our tyres better,” he says. “That was definitely not the reason why we finished so far behind Red Bull today. They were just faster. “
“But in terms of tyre management, we didn’t have a big degradation. And looking at Mercedes behind me, I had the pace of my tyres under control. So in that respect, it looked good. We still need to keep an eye on it because sometimes, especially in very specific conditions, we get out of the right window of the tyres and then we struggle quite a bit.”
So that’s something to work on, but Leclerc insists he has already seen an “incredible reaction” from Ferrari to the problems at the start of the season. Because when they realised they weren’t as competitive as they thought they were, they hit a reset button and dug in even harder, he says.
“They brought upgrades sometimes a month and a half early, and that takes a lot of effort from everyone in Maranello,” he praises. “And that, we saw, helped us to get great results. “
Vasseur: Doesn’t give a perfect structure
Despite this, there is still a long way to go, as Frederic Vasseur, who replaced Mattia Binotto as the new team boss, had to realise. He announced further changes to the structure because the team is “miles away” from what he envisages. However, he does not want to overstate this statement.
“When you do my job, you don’t have to imagine at all that there is a perfect structure,” he says. “You always have to improve and always have to change something. If you keep the same structure for two years in a row, then you’re dead, because everyone else will improve. “
“That means I don’t have a clear picture to say I have to do this and that and it will work. That would be stupid,” Vasseur clarifies.
He announces, “We will make some changes in the next few weeks, in the next few months, in the next few years, because some issues are a bit longer term than others. But it’s a constant evolution and a constant improvement. “
