Charles Leclerc and Scuderia Ferrari started off the season with high hopes that they could challenge Red Bull for the Championship. But as the season started, the team realized that they are far off the pace compared to the Red Bull RB19.
After the Miami Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc expressed his concerns about the team’s performance struggles. Charles is coming off a disappointing performance in Miami where he put his car in the wall during the 3rd session of qualifying. This saw him start and finish the race in 7th place.
Ferrari is currently on their longest streak without a championship. They won their last championship in 2007 with Kimi Raikkonen. Since then, the sport has been dominated by Red Bull and Mercedes.
Charles Leclerc struggles with the SF-23
After a disappointing Miami Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc said:
“We have a car that is so incredibly difficult to be on the limit. We are very, very far away, I struggle to find an explanation as to why we are so far away in the race and so close in qualifying.”
“We are competitive in qualifying but once we come to race day we are struggling like crazy. The window of our car is so narrow and whenever you get a little bit out it has huge consequences on the balance. It’s from one corner to the other and even in one corner sometimes you can have huge understeer which goes to huge oversteer and this is not ideal to have confidence in the car.”
“We have a lot of work to do. We need to find something. We have been struggling in the race since a little time now and we need to come up with some issues.”
Leclerc said: “It’s always an unknown whether the car is going to react well, whether the tires are going to be in the right window. This is just very difficult also as a driver to gain the confidence and to adapt your driving because you get from one set to the other and the car is completely in a different window.”
Charles Leclerc and the Ferrari have been showing some strong qualifying times in Azerbaijan and Miami. Leclerc even took pole position in Baku. But unfortunately was not able to set a fast time as he crashed during his second run in Q3 at Miami.
There have been rumors that Leclerc could be looking at other opportunities outside Ferrari. But Leclerc put those rumors to rest during his interview in Azerbaijan.
Frederick Vasseur addresses the team’s issues
Based on the comments from the drivers and Vasseur, it seems like the SF-23 is currently unpredictable and the team is unable to find the issue with the car. It is not often that a team has a good qualifying pace but loses a lot of pace in the race. It is assumed that tire degradation is the main cause of this.
We’ve got so much work to do in terms of race pace. We’ll keep pushing as always.
Next stop is in Imola ❤️ pic.twitter.com/u4Q4HP1dpa— Charles Leclerc (@Charles_Leclerc) May 7, 2023
Right now, Charles Leclerc sits in 7th place in the championship with just 34 points. Carlos Sainz on the other hand has scored 10 points more than his teammate, which could lead to a rivalry between the two. The team needs to find a solution for their performance if they hope to achieve P2 in the WCC this season.
Mercedes and Aston Martin seem to have better pace than Ferrari at the moment. The Red Bull is on another level and seems like they will be taking both trophies by the end of the season.
We now head into an important race for the Scuderia Ferrari. After a 1-week break, the sport will head into its first triple-header of the season, starting with Imola. Ferrari had a disappointing race here last season, they will be looking to bounce back in front of the Tifosi.
