Team principal at Ferrari, Frederic Vasseur remains confident that a change of car concept won’t be beneficial for the team at this point in the 2023 F1 season, stating that the Maranello squad will continue to develop the SF-23 in “one direction” throughout the year.
Photo Credit: Scuderia Ferrari
Ferrari has had a difficult start to the 2023 season, plagued by unreliability, driver mistakes and a general lack of pace in the first six rounds of the season, which left the team trailing both of their direct rivals this season, Ferrari and Aston Martin.
After a promising qualifying in Monaco with two drivers in the top five, things started to go downhill for the Scuderia. A three-place grid drop for Charles Leclerc for impeding Lando Norris in Q3 meant the Monegasque dropped to sixth place on the starting grid.
On race day, Carlos Sainz’s desperate attempt at getting past Esteban Ocon on lap 11 left the Spaniard with a damaged front wing, before a spin later on in the greasy conditions meant he couldn’t get first service at the pit box due to a double stack, and wasn’t able to finish higher than eighth, two spots behind Leclerc.
Speaking to selected media after the race in Monaco, Vasseur was asked if the current situation and pace gap to the benchmark of Red Bull would require more radical changes on the car. But the Frenchman was adamant that Ferrari will not change its car concept, and will instead focus on improving what they have throughout the year.
“I’m not sure Mercedes was faster than us in qualifying,” he said when asked about his rival changing concept. “We will see on the [long] term. Every single team has its own opinion, its own approach, also its own issue on the car.
“I think we have to continue to develop the car in one direction and we will see later on into the season.”
Vasseur said the SF-23 might have some glimpses of pace in the rain, especially in the final stages with the track drying up again, but underlined how the team is unable to assess its dry pace since it was stuck behind Alpine’s Esteban Ocon for the entirety of the first stint:
“I think in the first part of the race it was very difficult to get a picture because we were stuck behind [Esteban] Ocon, and we had no clue about the real pace of the car.
“Carlos [Sainz] was jumping a couple of times on the radio, saying that it was very easy [to follow], but perhaps for Ocon it was also easy [to stay ahead].
“I have a feeling we were in very good shape at end of the race, when the track was drying, but we have to discuss it.”
Ferrari now sits in fourth place in the constructors’ championship at 90 points, trailing Mercedes by 29 points and Aston Martin by a further point, with Red Bull over 150 points ahead of the Scuderia.
