Ferrari, disappointing start
Scuderia Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur did not hide and admitted the difficulties encountered by the Italian side in the two races that marked the beginning of the 2023 Formula 1 world championship, the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix. The SF-23 proved to be competitive in qualifying, but rather limping in race set-up, a situation that then reflected in the constructors’ standings which sees the Maranello team in fourth place ahead of the Australian Grand Prix, 61 lengths behind Red Bull.
There is therefore a lot of work for the Italian side to try to improve the car during the season with updates, well aware that the rivals will also not stand by and have already announced important developments arriving in the next grands prix.
Flavio Briatore has his say on Ferrari
Speaking on the Radio Rai broadcast ‘La politica nel pallone’, Italian businessman and former Benetton F1 managing director Flavio Briatore did not seem surprised by the results of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz:
“We’ve known Ferrari for years, it’s not that something extraordinary happened this year, it’s a bit what happened before”. The Italian manager pointed the finger at two aspects that did not convince him, primarily the political one: “The 2022 season started very well, but then the Federation changed the regulations due to the bouncing problem. If it had been me leading Ferrari, I would not have allowed the rules to change. Ferrari’s political actions must be incisive, last year they had an advantage and they shouldn’t have let the regulation change” – the former Renault F1 team boss explained.
For Flavio Briatore, the question also concerns driver management: “Last year it was said that the car was good for Charles Leclerc and less so for Carlos Sainz. So it was necessary to bet everything on Charles Leclerc, with Carlos Sainz who would have brought points for the constructors’ standings” – he pointed out.
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The other aspect that the Italian manager criticized is related to the “Ferrari communication”: “It wasn’t brilliant, in winter Ferrari is always a candidate to win the world championship and then things don’t go that way. I heard statements during the presentation with some of the executives saying: “Never seen a Ferrari so fast”, but all this stuff confuses the fans. I saw their anger on Instagram, because you don’t have to promise, you have to do the first race and see what happens. Not everything has to be thrown away, but they all have this expectation that Ferrari is forced to win the world championship. Unfortunately there are other teams who have worked better, making up for this gap is very, very difficult. Expectations are always too high compared to reality” – he believes.
While Flavio Briatore is proud of having pushed Fernando Alonso to accept Lawrence Stroll’s proposal of joining Aston Martin, Flavio Briatore urged Ferrari to take as an example the progress and work carried out by the former Force India and Racing Point team in recent years: “The team can fixed. How to do that? Just look at Aston Martin.” – Flavio Briatore concluded.
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