Ferrari has been the great disappointment at the start of the Formula 1 World Cup. After the first three races, the Italian team has not yet reached the podium and has picked up of the fight for the first places in the constructors’ championship, already being 97 points behind Red Bull and 39 of Aston Martin.
The problems of reliability They have weighed on the Maranello team, causing Charles Leclerc to retire in Bahrain and a suspension in Saudi Arabia, but Ferrari’s problems go beyond reliability. The high degradation of SF-23 tires causes performance to drop in the last stage of each race, as happened to Carlos Sainz in Sakhir, which prevented him from defending the position against Fernando Alonso in the fight for the podium.
In addition, the SF-23 has lost ground to its rivals in terms of sheer speed, being passed by Aston Martin and Mercedes also in sorting rate.
An improvement in three sentences
For this reason, the team led by Frédéric Vasseur wants to react quickly and will anticipate the introduction of improvements to their car, which will come in three phases. The first will arrive at the next appointment, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where most teams will incorporate their first big update. The three-week break caused by the suspension of the Chinese Grand Prix allows teams to fully focus on the development of single-seaters, so the Baku event will be full of news in all teams.
While the introduction of improvements in Azerbaijan will be widespread, it will not be so at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, where Ferrari will take its second package of updates. Ferrari wants to be competitive again on the European tour, and the Italian event, in addition to having a special importance for Ferrari because it runs at home, will be the first of the nine events that will be held in the old continent, so they will incorporate modifications in the SF-23.
The third phase will come at the Spanish Grand Prix, which will be held from June 2 to 4 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The Catalan layout has always been the test of cotton for the teams, and the engineers take it as a reference to have all kinds of curves, so Ferrari hopes to complete the ‘revolution’ of the SF-23 by then.
To know if it would be too late
If the deadlines are met, Ferrari will bring three big upgrade packages over the next five races, with which they hope to win again and reenlist to the championship fight. If they don’t get it after that period, it is likely that the 2023 season will become a transition year for the ‘Scuderia’.
