Charles Leclerc encourages Ferrari as focus shifts towards Hungary
As we approach the halfway point of the 2023 Formula One season, it’s time for the first assessments of the championship, and for Charles Leclerc and Ferrari, it cannot be positive considering the expectations before the start of the campaign. The Monegasque driver is currently seventh in the driver’s championship, with a mere 74 points to his name. A significant part of the responsibility lies with the SF-23, which had a poor start and only recent developments have partially improved the performance of the Ferrari challenger.
However, the test of the updates at Silverstone was unsuccessful, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finishing outside the points and even being beaten by Alex Albon’s Williams. It was a shameful result, partly due to an unfortunate entry of the Safety Car, but it clearly reflects a Ferrari lacking pace and being too vulnerable to changing weather conditions. On these two points, Charles Leclerc urged the Maranello team not to be discouraged, especially because in two weeks’ time, they will be racing at a circuit – Budapest – where the car should theoretically perform better.
Charles Leclerc’s words
“Honestly, not having the pace puts us in a situation where managing the race becomes very challenging, regardless of the circumstances. The Safety Car was certainly not the best thing for us; it gave an advantage to other drivers. But ultimately, we didn’t have the pace. It’s not that we degraded the tires more than others; it’s just that Mercedes and McLaren were stronger than us. I managed to stay ahead of George Russell in the first part of the race. Then we made the pit stop to prevent him from pitting and undercutting us, but it was too early. Finally, there was the Safety Car just as I was starting to push on the hard tires,” these were Charles Leclerc’s words following the race which was held at the Silverstone last weekend.
“It’s very difficult to understand why the race pace is worse than the single lap pace, but we knew that this track would be one of the worst for us, especially because of the high-speed corners. This is one of the weaknesses of the car. It was a positive surprise to be so close on Saturday. Not in terms of lap times, because I didn’t have a great lap in Q3, but we were very close to Red Bull, I believe. Then in the race, we struggled a lot, especially in the high-speed corners,” added the Ferrari driver. “I think we know why we are struggling. It’s clear that we are pushing a lot on development, especially in the high-speed corners. Hopefully, it will go better in Hungary, a track that is a bit more suited to us. We still have a long way to go because at the moment we still seem very sensitive to changing conditions, especially the wind. When there’s a change in wind, our car becomes extremely difficult. We have made some progress on this, but there is still a lot to do.” – the Monegasque driver explained.
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McLaren, a surprise to some extent
For a Scuderia Ferrari team that struggled greatly in the race, there was a McLaren that, on the other hand, excelled, securing second and fourth place. For Charles Leclerc, the Woking-based team was a surprise, but to some extent: “It was already surprising last week in Austria, but this weekend they took an even bigger step forward, doing a great job. We also knew how strong they are in high-speed corners, we saw it in Spielberg: we expected them to be fast here, but probably not that much. They did a great job, and now we need to push to try to catch up with them, at least in the high-speed corners. It was a surprise, but it’s also very difficult to predict the race results this year because the teams are very inconsistent.” – the Ferrari man concluded.
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