Carlos Sainz, Charles Leclerc expand on the 2023 Ferrari F1 car being too peaky amid concept talk, working only in certain conditions.
For Ferrari, 2022 must now seem like a very very long time ago. Back-to-back wins at the opening two Grands Prix then, but 2023, under the new regime of Frederic Vasseur has not started as well with fourth place from Carlos Sainz their best result so far against the Red Bull Monopoly.
Like the rest of the fraternity, they are wondering if it be a long season ahead as they play catch up. While Vasseur has been reserved about a conceptual issue, Sainz sort of admitted about the Red Bull concept being the one which is working well, thereby hinting of Ferrari’s own issues with theirs.
It has been a quiet start for all at Maranello compared to 2022 and Ferrari lie fourth in the Constructors Championship. Sainz spoke about the issues around the Italian manufacturer’s car and if they were related to concept or setup, alluding to how well Red Bull have got it right so far.
“When someone has such a big advantage like Red Bull has, it’s confirmed that it is a concept problem. Red Bull were right and we weren’t. We carried ourselves a bit with last year’s car, which was very fast on one lap pace. At the end of the year we could already see that on race pace was a step behind from RB. And this year, with the regulation changes, it’s clear that has been worse for our concept, and probably we need to look somewhere else.”
“At the moment the Red Bull is superior everywhere,” said Sainz to media. “Superior in qualy, in race, in straight-line speed. Superior in medium and low speed corners. They’re superior with tyre management, they’re superior over the kerbs. It shows we clearly need to change something, we need to go onto something very different from where we are now”.
“I think extremely good performance at the start of last season made us keep pushing with this concept. But I think we realise now that Red Bull have a clear advantage everywhere and that we need to start looking to our right and to our left,” summed up Sainz, who elaborated more on what has been ailing them after deep analysis.
He pointed towards the car being very peaky whereby it suits to just one condition and doesn’t work all-round if the conditions go different. ‘Honestly our analysis from the first few races is that there’s no fundamental issue with the car, it’s just a very peaky car – a very unpredictable car in the race,” started Sainz.
“It eats the tyres quite a lot. So, it’s just we need to improve our package. It’s just too peaky and we need to find a way to calm it down a bit, which is what also makes the car difficult in the race. The good thing is that everyone knows it. We know it in the track, they know it in Maranello and the good thing is that Ferrari has this manpower, this capacity to react”.
“If we all push in the same direction, I’m convinced this team can turn it around. Not in a short period of time, but in a medium period of time. Upgrades would hopefully improve how we are able to race with the car because at the moment we are very limited – we cannot race people too much because the car is difficult in dirty air”.
“We eat the tyres so it doesn’t allow you to push in the race to overtake people or we need to tyre manage a lot. This means in the race you are a bit stuck – you cannot play around too much. We know exactly where our weakness is and hopefully this will improve and allow us a bit more flexibility,” summed up Sainz.
Charles Leclerc concurred with teammate Sainz when talking about the car being peaky. “I think that in qualifying, we’ve been quite good since the beginning of the season,’ he said. “Where we need to focus on is the race where our car is extremely peaky. When all the conditions are right, we seem to be able to extract the performance out of our package but whenever the conditions are changing a little bit, with a heavier car where you see a little bit more the limitations of the car, then that’s where we struggle”.
“So we are trying to focus on that. I do believe that we’ll be quite close in qualifying – I hope so – but I think that the picture in the race will be quite similar,” summed up Leclerc.
Ferrari are certainly not alone but despite it being a sluggish enough beginning to the campaign, they can take heart from last season’s performances. In the end, they got overrun, like the rest of the grid, but a few tweaks here and there could see a totally different ball game occurring and there still 21 Grands Prix to go.
Here’s Carlos Sainz pinning hope on long season
Here’s Frederic Vasseur on Aston Martin not being an inspiration
Here’s Ferrari trio on Saudi Arabia situation
