Through a video posted on Instagram, Luigi Mazzola commented on the events of the second round of the 2023 Formula 1 season, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, focusing a lot on Scuderia Ferrari. The former manager of the Italian side did not go soft on Ferrari and pointed out that the performance in Jeddah was a real fiasco. Here are some of the most important statements.
Luigi Mazzola’s comments
“Very bad, very bad again. Unfortunately, once again we were not there in this race”, Luigi Mazzola explains in his video-analysis referring to the disappointing performance of Ferrari, which reached the finish line in sixth position with Carlos Sainz and seventh place for Charles Leclerc.
He continues: “We had a deficit of almost 40 seconds in 30 laps after the Safety Car. It’s a devastating thing. Certainly Ferrari was penalized by the Safety Car, because it went in early for the pit stop. But boy, there wasn’t any pace in this cars. There was no comparison to Red Bull, but no comparison even to Aston Martin and Mercedes. In Saudi Arabia we were the fourth force on track.” – the former Maranello manager admitted.
Yet, on February 14th, the SF-23 was unveiled amidst great enthusiasm and comments that targeted the Formula 1 world championship this year. “A car that who knows what kind of performance should have showed us given the way it was presented…”, underlines Luigi Mazzola. “It’s really a big fiasco, even in terms of bad vibes within the team. A fiasco that certainly will not help fix the situation within the team. There was a bit of a contrast between Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc,” he adds.
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Regarding Red Bull, Luigi Mazzola admitted: “They had an incredible race, the car flies. Who can stop them anymore? It’s hard to think that there’s anything that can stop them. If not reliability. Even if you start fifteenth and finish second… it’s clear that for them it becomes a walk in the park and for the others it becomes a bit of a problem”.
Then he returns to the difficult moment of Ferrari: “What to do? Work and try to understand, going back to Binotto’s famous words. I’ve heard of set-ups, but it’s not a question of set-ups. If one goes to compare Perez’s fastest lap with Leclerc’s, there’s no pace there, there’s something else. Maybe it’s called efficiency, maybe it’s called load.”
The final comment: “It was thought that Ferrari could do something more in Jeddah, given that we weren’t bad at speed in Bahrain. But instead… P6, P7: too far behind. Always Forza Ferrari, but morale is quite low now.” – the ex-Ferrari man concluded.
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