Charles Leclerc in the spotlight
At the Baku city circuit, Scuderia Ferrari managed to achieve what has so far been by far the best result of the 2023 Formula One season: two pole positions, both in the Sprint Race and in Sunday’s main Grand Prix, and two podium finishes: a second place in the mini-GP on Saturday and a third place in the main event of the weekend, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
All these solid results were achieved by Charles Leclerc, who once again confirmed his preference for street circuits and in particular for the fast layout that winds its way through the streets of the capital of Azerbaijan.
Decent points for Carlos Sainz
The excellent results achieved by the Monegasque talent combined with Carlos Sainz’s solid points finishes – fifth both in the Sprint and in the long race – have led many to talk about a small rebirth of the SF-23 car, finally capable of winning the battle for the role of second force behind a Red Bull that once again appeared unreachable for the competition. In particular, compared to previous GPs, Ferrari has shown less difficulty in the second half of the race, this time not suffering from tire degradation – a significant weakness in recent times for the Prancing Horse – despite a very long stint on hard tires which was needed given the Safety Car moment which Ferrari, just like most of the teams, wanted to capitalize on.
Truth and appearance
However, not everything that shines is gold for the Prancing Horse. As Formula 1 expert Federico Albano had already pointed out in his usual post-race analysis for formulapassion.it, the particular characteristics of the Azerbaijan circuit partially “distorted” the reading of the Grand Prix. This interpretation was also shared by former Ferrari engineer Luigi Mazzola, who provided an interesting evaluation of the weekend that has just ended in a video posted on his Instagram profile. According to the ex-Ferrari engineer, it is not possible to speak of an improved tire management for the SF-23 single-seater, as no team has really shown signs of wear on the hard tires at the Baku City circuit.
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Luigi Mazzola’s analysis
“The result was not that exceptional. There has been a lot of talk about tire consistency, but we have to be careful. It was a circuit on which a couple of drivers have done the whole race with a single set of hard tires without ever losing a lot of performance” – Luigi Mazzola emphasized, referring to the races of Esteban Ocon and Nico Hulkneberg, respectively with Alpine and Haas – “It was not a circuit that affected the tyres a lot. This was also seen in the top teams. The only one to have had a little degradation was Red Bull because it was the only one to push after the Safety Car, with the two drivers battling each other”. – concluded Luigi Mazzola, who has worked many years in Formula 1 with champions like Alain Prost, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen.
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