Despite the fact that Scuderia Ferrari started the previous campaign strong and seemed it would battle against the Red Bull – Max Verstappen duo for the Formula 1 titles until the end of the season, the Maranello team’s campaign unravelled as a result of a series of operational mistakes and power unit reliability problems.
Several of the Ferrari strategy decisions during a race, especially in the British Grand Prix where Ferrari kept Charles Leclerc out on used tyres for the safety car restart and in the Monaco Grand Prix, when Charles was leading the race but was called for two pit stops in just three laps, inevitably led to scrutiny of Ferrari’s approach on the pitwall.
New team boss Frederic Vasseur confirmed a few weeks ago, when he started his activity in Maranello, that he would not make any quick changes following his appointment at the top of the Ferrari F1 Racing Division, pointing out that there are deeper factors to evaluate before making any change with the goal of avoiding slip-ups, while at the same time explaining that the idea is not to point the finger at individuals.
Yet during the official SF-23 car reveal, which was held earlier today at the Fiorano circuit, the French manager confirmed there would be some small changes to the Maranello team’s strategy approach for the first race of the 2023 Formula 1 campaign, the Bahrain Grand Prix, which take place on March 5.
“Yes, we’ll make some small adjustments. But what I said last time is that you see just the visible part of the iceberg. And when you spoke about strategy, you were speaking about strategist, and strategy. It’s not just one person pushing on a button. It’s software, it’s the team at the factory, and it’s also process on the pit wall. And so it’s a complete picture rather than about one person.” – Frederic Vasseur pointed out.
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Scuderia Ferrari still remember the amazing start to the 2022 F1 campaign, with Charles Leclerc winning the Bahrain Grand Prix ahead of his Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz. Unfortunately the Italian side would go on and take just three more race victories during the rest of the season, as Red Bull and Max Verstappen easily won the titles in 2022.
The Maranello team did not manage to take any more race wins after the Austrian Grand Prix in July, clearly losing ground to Red Bull also in terms of race pace, despite often being the fastest car in the qualifying sessions. Ferrari racing director Laurent Mekies confirmed there had been a “very, very extensive review of 2022” at the team, looking at “where we have been lacking, because there is no need to hide.”
He continued:” “We have learned some of the things last year in the hard way, so of course we had this 360-degree review. What it means for us is that we are concentrating on giving our people the best platform to express themselves. We have been reviewing our processes, we have been reviewing the way we are working, in order to ensure each individual can express themselves at best individually and of course collectively.” – Laurent Mekies concluded.
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