It was all smiles at Ferrari’s pre-season launch event at Fiorano. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz exuded a quiet confidence and ease on the day that the SF-23 was revealed to the world, while new team principal Fred Vasseur was equally assured in his first public event with the team.
There were plenty of reasons to be optimistic within the confines of its Maranello headquarters. A lean period, instigated by the FIA’s investigation of Ferrari’s power unit design that resulted in many of its horses bolting, proved to be finally over and the team had enacted a recovery for 2022. Although the season exposed many of the squad’s weaknesses, new leadership would surely help Ferrari to challenge Red Bull on a much more consistent basis, particularly after its charge last year tailed off.
Three races into the 2023 season, and Ferrari appears to be in disarray once again. Confidence in its design concept appears to be wavering, Leclerc and Sainz have made uncharacteristic errors, and the haul from the Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Australia tripartite of opening races has yielded just 26 points.
On raw pace, Ferrari shouldn’t be in this position. The SF-23 is quick, particularly in qualifying trim, and Leclerc has twice been close to pole this season. He was just 0.3 seconds behind pole-winner Max Verstappen in Bahrain, and under 0.2s off Sergio Perez’s best lap in Jeddah to underline the competitiveness of the scarlet machine in qualifying. If Leclerc can unearth that last nugget of time, or if Sainz can string a lap together, there ought to be a more concerted challenge to break the Red Bull deadlock on the front of the grid.
The races, however,
