Charles Leclerc expressed his satisfaction with the progress Ferrari has made since Zandvoort. However, the adjustments made have made the SF-23 more understeering, which doesn’t align with his preferences.
Carlos Sainz Jr. has started the second half of the 2023 Formula One season with excellent form. His victory at the Singapore Grand Prix last weekend was the culmination of his strong performances, including a third-place finish at Monza behind the dominant Red Bulls.
It’s a state of grace that Sainz arguably hadn’t reached since joining the Scuderia. His performances stand out even more when compared to those of Charles Leclerc, who has appeared less brilliant than in the first half of the 2023 Formula 1 season.
It’s not just about race results, as Carlos Sainz has even outperformed Charles Leclerc in terms of raw pace, which is one of the Monegasque driver’s strengths, especially on tracks he favors.
At the end of the Marina Bay weekend, Charles Leclerc shed light on his situation, which is closely tied to that of the SF-23. In Zandvoort, Ferrari utilized the race weekend for extensive testing and gathered crucial insights.
Since then, adjustments have been made to make the SF-23 less twitchy and more predictable. This involved changes in setup and balance, which increased understeer.
It’s no coincidence that Carlos Sainz now feels more comfortable with this year’s car, while Charles Leclerc appears to have lost some of his early-season shine, even though the SF-23 is still far from the ideal car.
“At Zandvoort, we did a lot of testing. At Monza, we wanted to confirm what we had seen in testing and our understanding of the car. From Singapore onwards, we applied everything, and it felt like we took a big step forward,” said Charles Leclerc.
“Having said that, Singapore is historically a good track for us, so we need to wait for another race to understand if we have made a genuinely good and consistent step forward or if it was just a one-off.”
In Miami, Ferrari introduced a floor intended to make the SF-23 more predictable. However, Leclerc suggests that the team had to rely more on setup changes to improve the situation. In his view, this required abandoning some settings that made the car oversteer, which is closer to his driving preferences, to prevent it from being too twitchy.
“It’s fantastic to have Carlos in this form because it pushes me to understand my driving style a bit more and try to adapt it to this car. At the moment, I don’t feel completely comfortable with the car. There’s a bit too much understeer for my liking, and I struggle to drive it. Due to the unpredictability of the car, I can’t have the oversteer I would like.” – he pointed out.
“There’s some work to do, but first and foremost, it’s good to see that there seems to be competitiveness. Now, it’s up to me to try to recover. We have a very unpredictable car, and because of this unpredictability, we have to be careful with the balance. We can’t run with too much front-end because every time there’s a snap, we lose a lot of grip, and the car becomes difficult to manage. It’s not that the SF-23 is an understeering car, but we have to introduce some understeer to make it predictable, and that makes things more challenging,” Charles Leclerc concluded.
Leave a Reply