Following the great start to the 2022 Formula 1 championship, it seemed that Scuderia Ferrari would finally be able to challenge for the F1 title.
Charles Leclerc capitalized on the speed of the F1-75 in the start of the season and won the Bahrain Grand Prix, the first round of the year, with Carlos Sainz securing a memorable one-two finish for the Maranello team at the Bahrain International Circuit last year. After three rounds, Ferrari built up a solid gap in the constructors’ standings, initially leaving Red Bull far behind.
However, things went downhill from that point and by the end of the campaign, Red Bull secured both championship by a comfortable. Even more, the struggling Mercedes was able to reduce the gap to the Maranello team as a result of several errors made by the Italian side.
The pit stops were a specific issue for Scuderia Ferrari last season, both in terms of operational procedures and the decisions made regarding the timing of the pit stops and the tyres.
The Monte Carlo and Hungarian Grand Prix were marked by completely wrong tyre strategies which prevented Charles Leclerc from taking two race wins. A few weeks later, in the Belgian Grand Prix, the Italian side decided to call the Monegasque in for a late pit in an attempt to take the fastest lap of the race, but eventually Charles lost a position to Fernando Alonso as a result of this decision.
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The Italian side is now working on finding the small gaps which will could make a difference next season and the pit stops seem to be something they are carefully working on.
Diego Ioverno, the engineer responsible for the assembly departments, confirmed that the Maranello team will perform thousands of pit stops ahead of the start of the 2023 Formula One championship with the Ferrari crew now practicing 20 pit stops, three times each week.
The Italian engineer pointed out that the target is for every stop to be successfully completed in under three seconds, providing their drivers’ with a better chance of fighting for the race victory.
“Those under three seconds are considered very good. Up to three and a half seconds are good, but not perfect, under four seconds they are inadequate and above four and a half seconds we consider them failures,” explained Diego Ioverno.
Despite the fact that 73 percent of Scuderia Ferrari’s pit stops were completed in under three seconds in the previous championship, a stat that is even better than Red Bull’s 71 percent, the Maranello team are still looking to improve:
“We could consider ourselves satisfied, but we are not, because our target was to reach 80 percent and we weren’t able to capture it. In addition to trying to bring everyone towards the same threshold, this year we have decided to make the functions more flexible and so a gunslinger can also train in replacing the wheel. In 2023 the intention is to improve, avoid losing a wheel in a pit stop as happened last year. It wasn’t the mechanic who had the wrong position, but the call from the car had come too late.” – the Ferrari Head of Vehicle Operations concluded.
Following the arrival of Frederic Vasseur at the top of the Ferrari Racing Department, fans will be hoping for a much smoother and efficient title duel next season.
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