Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc was asked about the Italian side’s approach in the first part of the 2023 Formula One season in terms of not starting the new campaign with a first driver status and confirmed the is fully supportive of Ferrari’s call not to favour one driver over another until the season unfolds in the second part of the year.
New Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur confirmed several times since starting his new role in Maranello that Charles Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz begin the 2023 Formula 1 championship with equal equipment and treatment, a decision which the Monegasque driver explained he was fully behind.
“I completely agree with this philosophy, you cannot start a year favouring one driver over another],” Charles Leclerc said in a recent interview for the media, after the official presentation of the SF-23 challenger at the Fiorano circuit.
“I think it’s important for Carlos and I to be fully motivated to do the best job possible in the first part of the season, to push each other to perform the best. Then, if at one point in the championship a driver is fully in the fight for winning that championship, I’m sure the team will do everything possible for the driver that is fighting for the championship to be in the best possible conditions. For this, we’ll talk later obviously, but at the beginning of the season I think it’s the right thing to do.” – the Monegasque driver added.
Frederic Vasseur’s call not to favour one driver over another has been questioned by part of the media and the fans, while also being in opposition to the Maranello team’s approach in the past.
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During the 2000s, part of Ferrari’s success was also built on the solid partnership between Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher, as the Brazilian helped his teammate several times. After the seven-time Formula 1 world champion left Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa were given equal status, but still worked together to maximize results and were able to avoid any damaging on track battles.
Things changed once Fernando Alonso joined the Maranello team, with Ferrari issuing instructions in several events. During the 2010 German Grand Prix, Felipe Massa was leading the race ahead of his Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso, when his engineer Rob Smedley informed him that the Spaniard was faster than him.
The Brazilian obeyed the team orders and let Fernando Alonso past to take the lead and win the German Grand Prix, as the message sent by Rob Smedley’s was clearly seen as a coded instruction to make the change, despite the fact that team orders were not allowed at that time. In fact, after that moment, the FIA decided to cancel the 2003 ban on team orders, aware that it would not be possible to prevent team from giving coded messages which would just confuse the fans even more.
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