Scuderia Ferrari has a plan: to strive for a better performance in the second part of the championship and climb up to the second place in the Constructors’ Championship, aiming for a more consistent performance of the SF-23 compared to the highs and lows experienced in the first part of the 2023 Formula One season.
Considering Red Bull is out of reach (the Milton Keynes team has 503 points in hand, more than twice the points of the first follower, which is Mercedes at 256 points behind), the main target for the Scuderia is Aston Martin, as the gap with them is very small (-6 points): Toto Wolff’s team, with two drivers capable of extracting the maximum from the W14, enjoys a 56-point advantage. It’s a significant gap, especially since we see a change in the standings from one race to another: within just over two-tenths of a second per lap, four teams are packed closely together, and we must rightfully add McLaren to the mix. The team that finishes second in one race can find themselves fifth in the next one.
So far, the Italian side has collected much less than what they have sown, experiencing a series of errors that have added up: they had a very disappointing start with a red car falling well below expectations, leading to incorrect setup choices and strategic decisions, combined with mistakes from the two drivers struggling with a challenging SF-23 to push to the limit, with a very narrow usage window.
The Maranello team changed its approach at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, a disappointing Spanish Grand Prix in terms of performance, but it provided a new aerodynamic setup to the car with the new sidepods equipped with a semi-slider instead of the upper groove, which has been significantly reduced, following a development trend that has inspired other competitors as well.
Ferrari performed well in Canada at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and in Austria at the Red Bull Ring, but then disappointed in Silverstone and Budapest, only to show signs of awakening in Spa-Francorchamps. With the Sprint race format, there were no traditional free practice sessions (FP1 took place in heavy rain, not useful for setting up the car), and the weekend unfolded based on choices made beforehand with good work done in the simulator.
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Charles Leclerc’s Belgian podium indicates that when everything is put together without making mistakes at Maranello, the true potential of the SF-23 single-seater can emerge, giving the concrete feeling that it is better than what has been seen so far. That’s why the Racing Department wants to see where they can go by continuing the evolution of a car that cannot catch up with the RB19, but at least stay ahead of all the others.
While some teams will begin to limit their development packages and allocate resources to the 2024 cars to stay within the budget cap after the summer break, the Scuderia will try to persist with updates. Modifications have been approved that will be spread out until the United States GP in Austin, which means up to five races from the end.
This is a sign that the Prancing Horse has kept a good spending margin under the budget cap and has been able to invest further in a red car that can give some satisfaction to Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. Some things will already appear at Zandvoort for the Dutch GP at the end of the month, but particular attention will be focused on Monza, where a particularly low-downforce aerodynamic setup will be needed for the Italian Grand Prix.
Rumors, in fact, speak of newly designed sidepods with more extreme choices, despite the constraints given by the project, for example, the lower intrusion cone that does not allow freeing up an area where Red Bull manages to direct more air towards the floor, generating more aerodynamic load with the car body.
Since the regulations for 2024 Formula 1 will not change, the information gathered during the evolution of the SF-23 can also be transferred to the new car that is in development under the technical guidance of Enrico Cardile.
In short, Ferrari believes in its ability to react, trusting that others, constrained by spending limits, will stop their development earlier. Fred Vasseur is determined to go all the way, to try to straighten out a championship that has been much more complicated, difficult, and disappointing than expected…
