The many expectations of the Prancing Horse, which after the return to competitiveness in 2022, with the new team principal, gives the assault on the title that has been missing since 2007
Doomed to win. It would seem like a hackneyed slogan when it comes to Ferrari. Yet for the Cavallino 2023 edition it is more authentic than in other season starts. It has been a long time since such an energy has been breathed around the Scuderia di Maranello. In some respects, this is also a bit paradoxical, if you think about how the 2022 season ended, from mid-championship onwards dominated by Red Bull and Max Verstappen. Nonetheless, there is great enthusiasm and this was widely seen at the presentation on Valentine’s Day, a demonstration of affection between the redhead and her fans for whom a grandstand was set up and who were given the opportunity to witness the first laps of the new SF-23 with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz. A “dynamic” presentation that is profoundly different from the traditional “static” ones of all rivals, revealed in presence or even only digitally as is now an established tradition, especially after the push of the pandemic. It wasn’t an obvious way of presenting, it struck everyone and was the sign of an enthusiasm and a great desire for smiles and results that reigns in the team.
need
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Sentenced to win because 2022 has outlined a need that can no longer be postponed. Although the F1-75 proved to be a fast and successful single-seater with 4 wins and 12 poles, the World Championship was never really within reach due to reliability problems, strategy mistakes on the pit wall and pilot mistakes. The top management of the Prancing Horse thus decided to give a decisive swerve and for team principal Mattia Binotto, who also publicly tried to underline how the objective of returning to competitiveness had been achieved, the time had come for his resignation at the end of the season. Because, as the managing director Benedetto Vigna underlined, “the seconds are the first of the losers”, and therefore for Ferrari to reach the least noble steps of the podium is no longer acceptable. All the more so in the presence of a technical picture that is anything but Cinderella-like, as we saw last season.
with the experienced fred
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So space for Fred Vasseur, an experienced racing man from Alfa Romeo Sauber after a long career in the minor leagues, who will have the task of giving a work group already capable of doing well, a further (we would say the decisive one) acceleration towards the most important goal, the one that has been missing since 2007 with Kimi Raikkonen. Vasseur arrived with a decisive attitude, he immediately immersed himself in the Ferrari reality and is aware of what they are asking of him. He knows that his opponents won’t sleep, and Mercedes itself, which made a strong comeback at the end of last championship, could be much closer. And yet, without arrogance, the Frenchman will try to emulate the exploits of his compatriot Jean Todt, who drove the red in the long winning cycle at the beginning of the century with Michael Schumacher at the wheel: “We have two talented drivers – said Vasseur – both eager to winning and possessing the skills necessary to achieve the goal of winning the championship. It certainly won’t be an easy task because our rivals will have exactly the same finish line. We must always maintain the right mentality and work constantly to be better tomorrow than we are today”.
hungry pilots
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The hunger and ambition of the two pilots will be one of the most delicate issues of Vasseur’s management. Charles Leclerc in 2021 finished behind Carlos Sainz in the standings and in 2022, while returning to the front, he suffered a bit from the dynamics of internal competition with the Spaniard. The first “trouble” on who should get on for the first laps at Fiorano on the SF-23 was skilfully resolved by Vasseur with a “video-gag” in which a coin was tossed (a draw) and he recognized that in any case the second getting into the car (Sainz; ed) would however have completed one lap more than the first. Sainz took the opportunity to give the SF-23 an extra push and “give some indications to the engineers”. Just to clarify that every circumstance will be an opportunity to try to shine more than your partner. The declared pact is “no number 1, but support for the one best placed in the standings from a certain point onwards in the championship”. But in case of similar score?
the sf-23 weapon
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However, the enthusiasm is justified by the first images of the SF-23, a car which to many observers seemed to retain the right dose of creativity and innovation that the F1-75 had already shown. The chassis makers led by Enrico Cardile and David Sanchez worked hard to finally give Leclerc and Sainz a single-seater with more vertical downforce capable of better sticking to the asphalt without slipping and wearing out the tires in the middle of a race stint.
room for power
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The engine makers led by Enrico Gualtieri, on the other hand, concentrated on researching the reliability of a power unit which proved to be very powerful but fragile on the F1-75: the declared objective, moreover, given the regulatory freezing of the engines until 2026, was having the power and then managing it. Many of the destinies of the next season of the Cavallino, now upon us, pass from having solved these two technical problems. Then it will be up to the skills of Leclerc and Sainz.
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