Charles Leclerc and Ferrari managed a third place finish at the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix, while teammate Carlos Sainz was forced to retire his car, after a collision at the race start.
Max Verstappen took the victory at Belgium on Sunday, despite starting back in P6 due to a gearbox change, further cementing his grip on the 2023 drivers’ championship, his third in a row. The win was also the Dutchmans’ eighth consecutive victory, and Red Bulls’ 13th on the bounce.
For Charles Leclerc and Ferrari, they finished behind both RB cars of Sergio Perez and Verstappen, something that the Maranello team can be pleased with.
Leclerc lost out on the first lap to Perez and eight laps later to Verstappen, but he drove a very strong race to be best of the rest ahead of Lewis Hamilton.
Speaking after the race, Leclerc said it’s a good boost heading into the 4-week break before the action resumes at Zandvoort.
“It’s really important. At least it gives me a bit of a smile and I’m sure it gives a smile to many guys at the factory and at the track to go into the summer break with a race like this. It’s not a complete happy face because we are still very far off Red Bull and this is our target but on the other hand after such a difficult first part of the season it’s good to finish this first half that way.”
Leclerc admitted Ferrari expected to be stronger at Hungary than Spa, but it was in fact at the Belgian venue where they delivered strong pace and ultimately finished as the second strongest team on race day.
The competitive order behind Red Bull continues to change.
“I don’t think you can call it confidence because one weekend to the other it changes everything. There is something very interesting that we shall look in is our competitiveness from Budapest to here. I think before Budapest and here if I had to bet which track would suited most our car I’d have said Budapest. When you look at the two races we were much stronger here than in Budapest.
“This is exactly what we need to understand in order to maximise our package every race for the second half of the season because clearly we maybe didn’t understand something there,” the Monegasque continued. “It’s not a worry but it’s a point where we need to focus on. After FP1 we understood straight away that we were strong but before FP1 I did not expect us to be that strong so we need to look into it,” concluded Leclerc.
Photo credit: Scuderia Ferrari
It is no secret that Ferraris’ SF-23 car is a very mixed bag, capable of being very strong during one weekend, and very poor during the next. Leclerc shows a hint of cautious optimism here, but knows that this result is the best his team could do, and will give the Maranello side a much needed boost of confidence going into the summer break.
