There is just one day left to what, to all intents and purposes, will be the first official act of the 2023 Formula One season, i.e. the start of the only pre-season testing session at the Bahrain International Circuit.
A test during which, given the duration (only three days to prepare for a season made up of 23 races), all the teams will have to show their cards, both in terms of single-seaters, fielding the real cars with which they will take part in the championship and not the ” dummies” that they showed during the presentations only for sponsorship reasons, and in terms of performance given that, in just three days, there will be no time to hide the potential of the cars and everyone will have to show their true pace.
In fact, it will be a very important session from which the teams will seek answers: Red Bull to understand if it will be able to extend its winning streak that began with Max Verstappen’s world championship in 2021, Mercedes to understand if the 2022 crisis with its poor W13 is now just a memory and Scuderia Ferrari to understand if, after a 2022 season started in an impressive manner but ended in a disappointing way, it will be able to play its chances of winning a world championship again until the end of the season, a performance that has been missing in Maranello for over 15 years.
For now, according to the rumors collected in recent months, and above all to what Sky Italia’s Carlo Vanzini reported in this week’s edition of Autosprint, Scuderia Ferrari does not seem to lack the confidence of fighting for the world championship. A feeling that can also be perceived from the “in style” presentation that took place last week at Fiorano.
“Ferrari unveiled itself in a vintage, engaging way and it was the team that showed itself the most and, above all, the only one to immediately go onto the track, live worldwide, with all the risks involved, but also with the desire to show the muscles of those very “Italian” sidepods in the face of the ‘sculpted abs’ of Mercedes and Red Bull”
The confidence, as mentioned, derives from a “strong” presentation, but above all from the sensations on the sidelines of the event: both those of the drivers who got behind the wheel of SF-23 and those of the technicians who briefly commented the project and the corrective measures implemented, especially in terms of reliability.
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“At this stage, Ferrari is the one that feels like a winter championship. Everyone smiles, while the sparkling eyes of the drivers are there to prove it. Reliability, the Achilles’ heel that forced Ferrari to run at 80% in the second part of the 2022 Formula 1 season, seems able to become a strong point that will allow the Maranello team to use all the horses of the most powerful power unit on the grid and therefore run as they never managed last year. This is what they tell us, convinced that the Italian sidepods, with the brutal force of the power unit, will create that mix that will allow the Ferrari project to be immediately successful, or at least convincing over the distance” – Sky Italia’s Carlo Vanzini wrote.
An improved reliability which, hopefully, should allow maximum power to be released and which, together with a chassis capable of generating downforce should allow Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to drive a car capable of performing well in every scenario and to battle with competitors who, on the contrary, as reported by the Sky Sport commentator, will focus on other concepts to get to the top.
“Superpower to push an impressive chassis on the straight, but more stability in the corners. Mercedes and Red Bull, on the other hand, will try to make up for the missing horsepower with aerodynamic efficiency, discovering driveability limits”.
Reliability, power and downforce: factors on which Ferrari have focused to come back stronger in the upcoming Formula 1 season and which, according to Carlo Vanzini, worry the Mercedes technicians:
“In Brackley they are, albeit not publicly, very worried about what they know about Ferrari”.
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