There is a red alert. In the true sense of the word. Scuderia Ferrari has lost its way. Or if you prefer to use fashionable Formula 1 terminology, the Maranello team has lost the correlation between the simulation systems and the track. The SF-23 hides a potential that can be seen in the wind tunnel, but which appears only in flashes on the track.
Frederic Vasseur defends the project that he inherited from Mattia Binotto, but already after Jeddah he sent a clear and strong message to the engineers: “Let’s not talk bullshit, let’s look for the truth”.
He didn’t go around it with diplomacy, getting straight to the point. The Italian side leaves Saudi Arabia with far more questions than answers: Ferrari hoped to be much closer to Red Bulls at the Jeddah Corniche circuit and, instead, the team also ended up behind Aston Martin and Mercedes. A very bad sign, especially as compared to the W14 cars: the Brackley single-seater has already been rejected and a B version will arrive from Imola to correct the design flaws that have been identified. Being beaten by a Mercedes car that is deemed wrong highlights just how serious Ferrari’s crisis is.
In Bahrain, the retirement of Charles Leclerc due to the failure of the control unit had brought out the topic of reliability. The Monegasque had to take a 10-place grid penalty in Jeddah, after a convincing second place in qualifying just 155 thousandths from pole position.
The second race weekend of the 2023 Formula 1 season went smoothly as far as reliability was concerned: the power unit did its job without problems. Fact: he control units that failed weren’t the engine ones, but the ones that drive the hybrid system. It is true that there were no problems, but it is equally true that Ferrari used two fresh engines with the second MGU-H in Saudi Arabia.
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It is said that Ferrari can save the first engine, but will use it for stop-and-go tracks, while the current one will be used for fast tracks. We have reached the extremes of every single electronic and mechanical component when it would be enough for each piece to have a life span of seven GPs without problems.
Jeddah frightened Fred Vasseur because Ferrari was the team that brought the most technical innovations after the debut in Bahrain: new front wing, new floor and re-proposition of the rear mono-pylon with heavier profiles. In short, a great effort to improve from a team that didn’t give up on Sakhir’s difficulties, but tried to react immediately.
The commitment is commendable and is not equal to the result, because the SF-23 that took to the track in Jeddah was not the same one that had been planned at home: in the tunnel and in the simulator, the SF-23 car can afford to travel with minimal ground clearance which is not yet possible on the track.
Ferrari doesn’t have a basic setup and, when the data doesn’t add up, you start looking for a solution by changing not only the height, but also the stiffness of the suspensions and the incidence of the wings, in a scenario that doesn’t even make it clear if whether the modifications brought to Saudi Arabia actually worked or not.
The drivers find themselves with a car that often changes behaviour, eating its tires even on a track that is not very selective from this point of view. If in the wind tunnel the car was designed to run low and then on the track it is not possible to maintain that set-up without damaging the floor, it is clear that load is lost, as is clear that there will be less energy delivered for the tires and therefore there may be more degradation. Ferrari needs to understand why these things happen, otherwise it will be of little use to introduce new solutions.
The base-line is missing, the zero point on which to build and improve. And so we see a Ferrari that continues to experiment on the track in the hope of finding a solution, but in the meantime the drivers are not given the opportunity to simulate a qualifying session, preferring to run on fuel to control tire wear.
This is not how you can hope to win races: Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have the right to seek the feeling on a very fast track, with walls close to the track and without escape routes. And it makes no sense to deprive Carlos Sainz of a run in Q3 to save a set of new softs for the race, if that set is then returned to Pirelli unused.
Charles Leclerc’s ability to perform a flying lap like a champion fuels the hope that Ferrari will be good at least in Qualifying, but the feeling is that in that situation the Monegasque is putting his own mark more on performance, rather than capitalizing on some strengths of the car. Fred Vasseur points out that a car that goes fast in the flying lap and then loses itself in the race due to tire degradation is not the result of a wrong project: it is legitimate to think so if the technicians are able to give precise answers to the problems afflicting the ca. Otherwise it would be better to look to the future, changing the concept of the car, as Mercedes will do with the W14…
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