A 2023 season with ups and downs for Ferrari
The first half of the 2023 Formula One championship has been far from satisfying for the Maranello team, currently sitting in fourth place in the constructors’ championship at the start of the summer break, with results that leave a bitter taste: no victories (with Red Bull being the only winner in all races on the calendar so far), four podiums, and two pole positions. In these last two cases, Charles Leclerc has been the one to bring some smiles for the Tifosi, with the outcomes all sharing an interesting feature.
The Common Element
The highest results achieved by the Prancing Horse have indeed come during the Sprint weekend. The Monegasque driver obtained the fastest lap in qualifying at the Baku City circuit in Azerbaijan, then finishing second in the Sprint and third in the race, all in Azerbaijan. Since then, car number 16 has not replicated such performances until the Austrian Grand Prix, where Leclerc secured 2nd place in the Sunday race, followed by the 3rd position in the last race at Spa-Francorchamps, where he also set the second-best time in qualifying. However, due to a penalty inflicted on Max Verstappen, this performance automatically converted to a pole position.
Fred Vasseur’s Longest Break
Three Sprint weekends and three positive results in each event. Additionally, this year’s calendar includes three more races with this format: Losail, Austin, and Interlagos. The first one, scheduled in Qatar from October 6 to 8, will be the occasion to see Team Principal Frederic Vasseur back on the pit wall. Jokingly, he explained the reasons for these coincidences to the media, saying, “I will return to Qatar – there could be various explanations for this, and the first one might be that we are better prepared than some of our competitors for the Sprint weekends. Perhaps it is also related to the characteristics of the tracks, as there are similarities between Baku and Spa, but I’m not sure if these are the right considerations.” – the French manager said after the Belgian Grand Prix.
Explanations for Spa-Francorchamps results
Moreover, according to the regulations, in Sprint weekends, each team is required to maintain the same set-up used during the first free practice session for the Friday qualifying, due to the closed park regime. Regarding the last Belgian GP, Fred Vasseur admitted that Ferrari took all the necessary precautions, especially due to the continuously changing weather conditions between rain and dry conditions:
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“It was the same for everyone – he concluded – we need to be cautious, no one wants to do ‘lift and coast’ for 10 laps because they don’t have enough fuel. We certainly have data from last year, and sometimes we can rely on what we have done in the past, and we have the correlation from the beginning of this season compared to last year. This is important, and in terms of setup, we all lean on the conservative side, knowing that managing the weekend will be very challenging. We cannot go back after FP1, and this means we will have to go through two Qualifying sessions and the races with the same configuration.” – the Ferrari boss concluded.
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