Poor F1 2023 start highlights size of the task at hand for Ferrari
FINAL CORNER, CHEQUERED FLAG: Ferrari have a long road back to the top
Ferrari’s start to the season is the worst they have suffered under the current points system, which was introduced in 2010.
A total of 26 from the opening three races has the Scuderia sitting 4th in the Constructors Championship, closer to McLaren in 5th than Mercedes in 3rd.
Given the embarrassing nature of McLaren’s own start to the year, this is a damning indictment of how the Italian outfit have begun their attempt to overthrow Red Bull’s hold on the title.
Just 12 months ago, Charles Leclerc was off the back of his second victory from three races and had a commanding lead on the championship.
One race win since is a remarkably low return given how quick he and the car looked in the early stages of 2022.
Ferrari initially nailed the new regulations which positioned Leclerc to finally challenge at the front.
We all know how that collapsed over the course of last season, but to see the team continue to decline into 2023 is a huge warning sign for the Monegasque.
Leclerc has the talent to compete with the very best, as he has shown on many occasions, but has been sorely let down by the team.
The Ferrari problem has always been about winning NextYear™ but now even that kind of false platitude looks well wide of the mark.
While Red Bull have clearly established themselves as the top team with a fantastic machine in the RB19, which may yet go down as one of the best the sport has ever seen, Ferrari have still dropped the ball massively in comparison to Mercedes and especially Aston Martin.
The true hallmark of just how much this team has gone backwards in the last 12 months has been the rise of Aston Martin, who have three podiums this year compared to Ferrari’s none.
The Silverstone team were last at this stage last year, with zero points to their name, and have now already out-scored their entire 2022 total after just three races in 2023.
The one lap pace of the Ferrari remains strong, but long-runs have suffered from persistent issues that have plagued the team for far too long.
Reliability has also struck Leclerc’s side, costing him a decent finish in Bahrain with a podium very much on the cards.
A double whammy was then suffered with a grid-drop penalty in just the second race of the campaign.
Leclerc’s DNF in Australia was compounded by Carlos Sainz’s five-second penalty which dropped him from 4th to outside of the points due to the weird nature of the safety car finish in Melbourne.
While the penalty was deserved, the punishment dropped him far further back than would be normal due to the way things ended.
Considering the race pace of the car actually looked good in Australia, this was a huge missed opportunity for the team to earn a good points haul.
That failure to maximise the potential of the car has hampered Ferrari for so long, but at least in this case there was nothing the pitwall could have done about driver errors.
Operationally, Ferrari have seemingly improved this year with pit stop times and strategies looking on point so far this season.
But bad luck has now struck, with the timing of the safety car in Saudi Arabia setting the team back there as well.
This is what new team boss Federic Vasseur has to deal with as he looks to turn around the mess left behind by Mattia Binotto.
Departures to key figures behind the scenes has left him with a huge clean-up operation.
Upgrades will arrive in the weeks to come, but their competitors won’t be standing still at the same time so there are no guarantees these will bring the team closer to the front.
However, Leclerc will be eager for Ferrari to get ahold of their issues and get on top of them—and quickly.
There is the threat that their star driver may leave if things don’t improve.
The 25-year-old is in his fifth campaign in Maranello but has yet to enjoy a proper title charge, a historically barren period for the team.
Any worry over his future with Ferrari should be eased by the simple fact that winning with the famous red team is a dream that Leclerc has often spoken about having since a young age.
However, his patience will wear thin eventually and perhaps thoughts of driving with another team may someday pop into his mind.
Ferrari cannot afford to let their partnership with Leclerc slip through their fingers, which will be of the utmost importance to Vasseur as he looks to turn things around.
While this worst start in over a decade doesn’t quite reflect where the team stands in the pecking order perfectly, it is indicative of the level of change and improvement needed both on and off the track at Ferrari.
Prediction corner
Staying on-topic, let’s go for a Ferrari prediction. The team will fail to win a single race in 2023, but no driver changes into 2024.
Driver power rankings - Australia
Race rating - Australia
This was a race built on the tension of whether the pack hunting for the podium places could get within DRS range of each other.
The first red flag sucked some of the tension out of this one and things never really got going again until the second red flag.
From there, the race became a total mess and none of it really mattered to anyone but Alpine. 2/5.
Quote of the week
“I hope there won’t be too many changes, otherwise I won’t be around for too long,” said Max Verstappen, as pressure builds on the future of the F1 race weekend format.
“I am not a fan of it at all.
“When we do all that kind of stuff, the weekend becomes very intense and we already do a lot of races.”
What to expect - Baku Part I
With the long break, there will actually be another newsletter before the next race. This allows the chance to look at many angles of the build-up.
It is set to be a sprint weekend in Azerbaijan, but the final format of that is yet to really be nailed down.
Expect a lot more discussion on what the future of the weekend should look like as F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali continues to push the envelope in his ideas for changing the sport.