It’s the last day of rest at Ferrari: tomorrow the era of Frederic Vasseur as head of the Scuderia will begin, given that the Frenchman will take on the role of team principal, replacing Mattia Binotto. And the first day of the French manager will also coincide with the return of the entire staff after the Christmas holidays.
The Ferrari Racing Division will officially begin the 2023 Formula 1 season: the Maranello team prepares for a championship in which it will be expected to challenger Red Bull and Mercedes for both titles. The fact that Helmut Marko, the talkative Red Bull manager, sees Mercedes as the main opponent in 2023, more than the Italian side, which says a lot that in Milton Keynes they also fear Ferrari, starting a psychological warfare which they are so good at.
Frederic Vasseur arrives in Maranello without the anxiety of immediately changing the structure of the Reparto Corse: the former Alfa Romeo team principal is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of a team that in 2022 did not prove mature enough to aspire to the two titles, regardless of the reliability problems that undermined the performance of the F1-75 car.
The 675, the design code for the 2023 single-seater, is in an advanced stage of construction: Frederic, therefore, inherits a project that is said to be very good, at least according to the comparison simulations with last year’s car which took second place in the Constructors’ and Drivers’ World Championship with four victories and twelve pole positions.
The data emerging from both the wind tunnel and the simulator indicate that the leap in quality will be important. Will it be enough to defeat Max Verstappen’s Red Bull RB19? We will only find out in the official winter testing session in Bahrain…
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On a visual level, the new Ferrari does not appear to be very different from the F1-75: in reality, every detail has been revised to be able to reduce weight and drop below 796 kg, which represents the minimum limit imposed by the FIA: only once assembly is complete will the actual value be known, but the goal is to have a little more than 5 kg of ballast which could be good for car balance.
Furthermore, project 675 will have an engine which will close the power gap with the 066/7 that was homologated last March, given that the last championship started with about fifteen horsepower less to preserve its reliability and during the 2022 Formula 1 season it was further limited to avoid other technical failures. The Scuderia had to resort to as many as six internal combustion units: too many for anyone with the ambition to compete with Red Bull and Mercedes.
The feeling is that the work of the technicians directed by Enrico Gualtieri has given results that fuel a certain optimism for 2023. At an aerodynamic level, the project has been revised to reduce the drag: with less drag, Ferrari aims to reduce the gap in terms of top speeds with Red Bull, which was one of the main issues in the last championship.
The new Pirelli front tyres, designed to try to reduce the congenital understeer which was a characteristic of the 2022 tyres, should meet the development that has been carried out by the Scuderia, bearing in mind that Ferrari has been the most collaborative team in testing with the sole supplier and in Maranello they managed to evolve the mathematical model of tires which should favor predictive simulation work.
Let’s not forget that there will be 6 Sprint races on the calendar this year: the starting grid for these appointments will be decided after just one free practice session, so it will be essential to put a car with a good basic setup on the track.
Fred Vasseur, therefore, finds himself served on a silver platter a car that was designed (it will be seen on February 14) with ambitions. The team principal will need some time to get to know the dynamics of the Gestione Sportiva, before making decisions regarding those positions that have shown the team’s shortcomings.
On a technical level, there will be confirmation of the two Enricos in command: Cardile on the chassis side and Gualtieri on the power unit side. The role of technical director, therefore, will be carried out by these figures, while Simone Resta could return home from Haas as manager of the 2024 car, provided that the engineer from Imola accepts the role of chief designer after having been technical director both in Alfa Romeo and Haas.
The role of Benedetto Vigna must not be forgotten in this context: the Ferrari CEO never had a good relationship with Mattia Binotto who fought to maintain the total autonomy of the Ferrari Racing Division from the rest of the company. Fred Vasseur, on the other hand, will be able to count on full support, especially as Benedetto Vigna has become very involved in Formula 1.
And already in the first days of this month the issues concerning Ferrari’s view on the 2026 regulation will have to be resolved: the Maranello team is the only manufacturer that has not yet signed. Since a Formula 1 without the Scuderia is unthinkable, it is reasonable to believe that some common ground will be found to prevent Maranello from deciding to enforce the right of veto. We will find out from this rather delicate situation how much the new Ferrari management will be able to regain that political power that has seemed to be lost recently…
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