The 2023 Formula 1 season feels very familiar to Charles Leclerc. The Ferrari driver started the year expecting huge, glittering things after taking major steps towards his world championship ambition the year before – a season where the team’s frailties and his own errors proved costly. But, despite a pre-season of positive speculation about his and Ferrari’s chances, testing revealed them to be rather dashed. For 2023, read 2020.
That year, Ferrari’s challenger was designed to make up for its predecessor’s low-speed-corner weaknesses. But the controversial FIA engine settlement meant Ferrari’s power unit was unexpectedly down on top-end punch. It would be two years before the team’s engine grunt was challenging Honda and Mercedes again, by which time F1’s chassis rules had moved on to something else entirely and the team was suddenly back in play for victory.
“The motivation was extremely high,” Leclerc says of his 2023 pre-season expectations. “And obviously, there was the momentum of last season where we finished second in the drivers’ championship, second in the constructors’ championship – you’ve got one target from that moment onwards. Do a step forward. Become a world champion this year – both drivers’ and constructors’.
“Then you get to the first race and you understand that it might be a lot more difficult than that.”
It was clear in pre-season testing in Bahrain that Ferrari suspected it was in trouble for 2023. The team had worked to improve aero efficiency in the SF-23 after the
