Ferrari’s President John Elkann Discusses 2023 Formula 1 World Championship and Team Progress

Only one race left, the Gran Premio in Abu Dhabi and then they will be credits on the 2023 Formula 1 World Championship. Time to take stock for everyone. Also and above all for the Ferrari which struggled with an SF23 that was born badly and grew up well with some peaks, see Austria, Monza, Singapore and the latest in Las Vegas.

Right in the Florida city, the president of the red team was present in the pits, John Elkann which he gave himself to the BBC in a long interview where he really addressed every possible and imaginable topic. From investments for the future, to the first year of Frederic Vasseur in the role of team principal up to the post of Mattia Binotto to the age-old question of the renewals of the two drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz without missing a jab at the governance of the circus, FIA and Liberty Media.

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F1, Ferrari: Elkann takes stock of 2023

The president of Ferrari, John Elkann present in Las Vegas, he chose the BBC to give an interview in which he took stock of the Scuderia. She states that to begin with “couldn’t be happier” of the prospect of the team returning to the top of Formula 1 under the leadership of Frederic Vasseur.

“Ferrari is moving 100% in the right direction, and he definitely saw the positive change he was hoping for. The team is much more united, much more united under Vasseur and so many incredibly talented people want to come to Ferrari, and that is a very strong sign.”

Appointed president of Ferrari in July 2018, last year Elkann chose Vasseur to replace Mattia Binotto as team principal of the Maranello team.

Source: Ansa

Ferrari finished second in 2022, after a good start which was interrupted by a series of operational errors and reliability problems, before the car lost its competitiveness. These failures were the straw that broke the camel’s back Elkann when it came to Binotto:

“What’s really important, and this is our thinking, is that accountability is really one of the biggest determining factors in what our competitors have gotten right. And also agility, despite their larger organizations. They tend to be more agile and faster. And Fred had these attributes, having worked in motorsport all his professional life and having been very successful in several categories, but also in F1 having managed a smaller team (both Renault and Sauber/Alfa Romeo, ed.). So on the one hand he brings with him a culture of accountability, but he also knows and has operated in smaller, more effective and more agile organisations, and this is definitely something we were missing compared to our stronger competitors.”

Ferrari, from Elkann the statistics that demonstrate the progress

As Andrew Benson explains in his article, Elkann came to the interview armed with statistics to demonstrate Ferrari’s progress in 2023. Vasseur he only started working in Maranello in January, so Ferrari started the season with a car left behind by the choices made under the guidance of Binotto last year. An SF23 that proved to be nervous on the track and difficult for Sainz and Leclerc to manage, especially in the first races.

Data in hand, however, the Ferrari president shows how in the first half of the year Ferrari was on average 0.275 seconds slower than Red Bull. In the second half of the year – on the single lap, but certainly not in the race – Ferrari was actually faster than Red Bull, by 0.027 seconds. He has taken pole position in six of the last 10 races.

Source: ANSA

There has been steady progress throughout the year. Ferrari was the only team other than Red Bull to win a race, thanks to Sainz’s victory in Singapore. And Leclerc could well have added another victory in Las Vegas if not for the unfortunate timing of a second safety car.

On average points per race, Ferrari scored 15.7 points in the first half of the year, compared to 20.5 in the second. This represents an increase of 30.5% – a figure beaten only by McLaren, whose remarkable progress since Silverstone has been there for all to see.

And then Elkann recalls Ferrari’s victorious return to Le Mans this year, which he says has been “very encouraging and invigorating” for the F1 business.

Ferrari, Elkann: “Vasseur like Jean Todt in Schumacher’s time”

One of the criticisms leveled at Ferrari in recent years has been that of having a complicated decision-making apparatus, the main explanation for why it has not been able to compete with leaner teams at the top of the caliber of Red Bull e Mercedes in the last fifteen years. The example brought to Elkann’s analysis is the winning streak of the golden years of Michael Schumacher with a strong management team led by team leader Jean Todt and technical director Ross Brawn.

“We had a very clear organization in those years, the reality is that we are a single company and we feel very proud of it, something we have tried to encourage especially in recent years” says Elkann “But this is also linked to having clear responsibilities”

Why Ferrari doesn’t win anymore, Elkann’s answer

Ferrari’s last drivers’ title was won by Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, while the last constructors’ title was in 2008 (the year Massa was one step away from the title and the crashgate). Only four times in the next 15 years were they able to win the championship, in 2010 and 2012 with Alonso and in 2017 and 2018 with Vettel.

Elkann recognizes the “Very strong competition from Red Bull and Mercedes in this period. Ferrari was unable to convert its competitiveness, our potential, in sufficient victories. Why? There are always many, many reasons and every single aspect counts. I remember that we had a really bad season in 2020 and one of the things that surprised me was that as well as on the track we did worse in pit stops compared to our championship ranking. That was an indicator of the mentality, because in the end to really win you have to be good at everything.”

Source: IPA

Since then there has been important progress by Ferrari regarding pit stops. In 2022, 80% were less than three seconds; this year the percentage rose to 88%. Ferrari moved up to second place in pit stops behind Red Bull, and has the second fastest pit stop all year: the 1.93 seconds achieved with Leclerc in Qatar beaten only by McLaren’s 1.80 with Lando Norris in the same race.

Elkann attributes this credit to sporting director Diego Iovernoadding: “This is an indication of how focus and intentions are ultimately an important requirement to be able to achieve competitiveness and ultimately be able to translate it into results.”

Another change in attitude that Elkann encourages is a more international approach to team building:

“The important thing is to have the best possible team, and if you can have the best possible team and have women and men from different nationalities and backgrounds enabling that to happen, that’s very welcome. Our identity is very clearly defined as Italian and the backbone of our organization is Italian. But this is in no way a disadvantage. On the contrary, it is a basis on which very strong talents from different places can be integrated. “

Ferrari, John Elkann: “Leclerc has enormous potential”

Regarding expectations for next year, Elkann says: “What is really important is to maintain the pace and momentum of improvement. Every year will be difficult for unknown reasons.”. He uses Ferrari’s weekend in Las Vegas as an example of the attitude he would like to see the team continue to take in the face of adversity.

Sainz’s car was destroyed when it hit a manhole in first free practice, and one of the consequences of the accident was a 10-place grid penalty for using a new engine. In all of this, the team managed to rebuild the Spaniard’s SF23, putting it back on track for FP2 and arriving with both drivers on the front row in qualifying.

“I like what happened”says Elkann“They worked very hard on Sainz’s car, they fixed the car, they did really well in qualifying. That’s the attitude you need to have and that’s what’s important to move forward and grow in 2024. The important thing about looking at how progress is made is that in reality progress is not necessarily linear. How you come out of difficult results ultimately makes you stronger if you have the right attitude, and this weekend is exactly the example of that.”

Right on the pilots’ front John Elkann says Ferrari retains the trust it had in Leclerc when he signed him to a five-year contract after just one year with the team at the end of 2019.

“Charles is a very strong driver who has huge potential and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be world champion. We believe that our riders are very strong and have very strong potential. What is important is to be able to work to convert that potential into real results.”

Source: Ansa

John Elkann pulls the ears of the FIA ​​and Liberty Media: “Greater clarity on the rules”

On the broader question of the health of F1, Elkann talks about the dominance of Max Verstappen and Red Bull: “If they dominate, it means they’re really good and that’s good because the sport aspires to really push for the best and that’s what we thrive on and aspire to but if there’s no one who can catch up, it’s no good.”

When asked if there are changes that Ferrari would like to see in F1 as a whole, Elkann has quite clear ideas here too:

“On the one hand, there are many changes towards the evolution of technologies, the importance of having zero carbon emissions. In this area it is important to be able to clearly define rules and applications. Always. Nobody wants things like the 2021 World Cup finale to happen (Masi’s management of the last lap between Hamilton and Verstappen, ed.). Nobody wants to have situations like ours in Las Vegas, where you get penalized 10 places through no fault of your own. So from a regulatory perspective in terms of rules and enforcement and what we’ve seen with budget constraints (broken by Red Bull in 2021, ed.), those are areas where we would like to have more clarity.”

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Source: Getty Images
2023-11-23 07:13:00
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