Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz is confident that the future upgrades which the Maranello team is currently working on will be able to fix the key weaknesses of the SF-23 challenger and therefore “completely change” Ferrari’s 2023 Formula 1 championship.
The Maranello team started the new season in the worst possible way at the Bahrain International Circuit, but had hoped that the poor performance in Sakhir would only be track-related. Sadly, but last Sunday’s display at the Jeddah Corniche circuit clearly confirmed that Ferrari has lost a lot of ground against the Austrian side as compared to the previous campaign.
Despite the fact that Charles Leclerc ended the qualifying session in second place at the Jeddah Corniche circuit, just 0.155s from to the best lap time set by Sergio Perez in Q3, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix saw both SF-23 cars struggled for pace and especially on the final stint, on the hard Pirelli tyres, an issue that Ferrari has to look into and fix as soon as possible:
“The last stint on the hard proves that we are not where we want to be, that we still deg more than the Mercedes, that we still deg more than the Aston martin, and we lack a bit of race pace. A bit surprised because after Friday and before the weekend I thought we had a chance to be the second force here in Jeddah, but I think that second stint on the hard proves we still have a lot of work to do. That we have a weakness in the race, that we need to wait for developments to come to see if we can improve that weakness.” – Carlos Sainz pointed out.
Issues with tyre degradation and overheating were the key aspects that prevented Ferrari from challenging Red Bull last season as well. However, in the start of the current championship, the new SF-23 car seems to be “eating its tyres alive” on Sunday, as explained by the Spanish driver:
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“We need clean air to produce some kind of decent lap times,” he added. “We know exactly our weaknesses. This is a positive. Obviously we cannot do magic to bring the developments early, but I know the team is pushing flat out to bring them and this will improve our race pace for sure.” – he added.
Despite the unexpected underperformance in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, Carlos Sainz is encouraged by the fact that the Italian side now has a much better idea about what direction it has to take to improve as soon as possible. As for how the Maranello team can move forward in the next few weeks with the goal of at least defending its P2 in the Constructors Championship from last season, Carlos Sainz is certain Ferrari’s ongoing development plan will be able to fix the SF-23’s key problems:
“We know where it is, we identified it already in Bahrain. The thing is that the car is doing exactly the same as in the wind tunnel, so we know where the weakness is in the wind tunnel [and] where the weakness is here. We know where to develop the car, we just need time because from the weakness that we saw in Bahrain and we see here, obviously we cannot bring the upgrades as soon as tomorrow. But I’m positive that this team is capable of bringing them early in the season, and this could change completely our season, so heads down and time to work hard.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz concluded.
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