Scuderia Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur has recently admitted there is a department within the Italian side that “needs to improve” but the French manager did not want to specifically point out which one he was talking about.
Scuderia Ferrari’s beginning of the 2023 Formula 1 championship has been far specifically than last year’s: while in 2022 Charles Leclerc won the Bahrain Grand Prix and finished second in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, this time the Monegasque driver was forced to retire from the Sakhir event due to a power unit issue and had to settle for P7 in the second round of the season at the Jeddah Corniche circuit. Things went slightly better for his Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz, who finished P4 in Bahrain and P6 in Jeddah, but still far below the expectations.
It is not an encouraging start for either Ferrari fans or Frederic Vasseur, as the Maranello team had hoped to make a further step forward and finally challenge for the Formula One world titles in 2023.
But only two races were completed so far and this means there is still time for Frederic Vasseur to turn things around and save the season. The French manager even went as far as to admit there was a particular key department he has his eye on in terms of improvement.
The Ferrari boss was interviewed by Spanish daily sports newspaper AS and did not want to reveal the name of the department but he did urge all Ferrari team members to focus on savings with the goal of directing the resources on improving the Sf-23 car.
“I try to get the message across that benefits come from everyone, including logistics staff. Because if they can make a minimum saving, that will go directly to the car. Not just aerodynamics and engine. Same with reliability, each employee is part of the reliability goal when they design and produce the part. That is the mentality I want, to convince everyone that they bring benefits.” – the Frenchman pointed out.
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Sadly for Frederic Vasseur, in Maranello there is a long list of departments that could potentially be referencing to be able to bring the Formula 1 Racing Division back at the top. For example, there is the reliability factor, as the power unit is still proving a particularly difficult area to manage in this start of the season, despite the fact that Ferrari focused a lot on this issue since the second half of the previous Formula 1 campaign.
Charles Leclerc has already used all his electronic control units available for the 2023 championship and even had to take a ten-place grid penalty in Saudi Arabia. The Italian side hope to save at lease one electronic control unit and use it on the SF-23 car of the Monegasque later in the season, but it is clear that the engine area needs to step up. Carlos Sainz also pointed out the need for improvement in this key area, describing it as a “bad situation.”
Apart from the power unit, the obvious cause of other Ferrari problems in 2022 was represented by team strategy, with the Italian side shooting themselves in the foot several times during the previous championship and losing valuable points as was the case on the streets of Monte Carlo, in Silverstone or at the Hungaroring. With Mattia Binotto at the top of the Ferrari Racing Division, it looked as the same people who made those decision would still be in the job for the 2023 season, but Fred Vasseur decided to replace Inaki Rueda in favour of Ravin Jain ahead of the new F1 campaign.
One final area, but not less important, where Ferrari needs to improve if they have any hope of a title challenge for the next years is car pace and performance but this in fact is a combination of many areas.
The SF-23 car lacked pace and was one second per lap slower than the Red Bull RB19 challenger in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, where the Maranello team did not even have the second fastest car, being overtaken by Aston Martin and Mercedes. The aerodynamic department, the power unit team and the several other key department which all contribute to get the maximum performance out of a car will now have to prove their worth and work under huge pressure to reduce some of the gap between themselves and Red Bull.
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