The first race of the 2023 season concluded a week ago in Bahrain. It began with defending champion Max Verstappen taking the lead to comfortably pass the chequered flag with the first victory of 2023. Meanwhile, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc could not even finish his race.
Only a few days after the Bahrain GP, Ferrari’s technical leader David Sanchez quit the Maranello squad. As further reports suggest, there are more who will be leaving the team.
Amidst this, La Gazzetta dello Sport also reported that upon his return to Maranello, Leclerc held a meeting with Ferrari chairman John Elkann to discuss the future of the Scuderia’s board.
Charles Leclerc might be getting impatient
The Monegasque is racing his fifth season in F1 with Ferrari with the dream to win the championship. Every year that dream gets interrupted by one thing or the other so it is obvious that Leclerc is concerned.
Especially in the 2023 season, with Mattia Binotto getting replaced by Fred Vasseur, the gap to Red Bull was supposed to reduce. But if anything, the first race of the season has shown that SF-23 is even less competitive than F1-75.
Charles Leclerc is already facing an engine penalty.
His Bahrain DNF was caused by an ES (energy store) failure. It can’t be recovered.
Only two ES elements are allowed per season, and Leclerc’s other ES was changed pre-race due to concerns.
— formularacers (@formularacers_) March 6, 2023
The 25-year-old must be getting a bit impatient and with his contract set to expire in 2024, the Italian camp might face another problem soon.
Even though Mercedes has been speculated to be a possible destination for Leclerc in that scenario, his departure from Ferrari seems unlikely. Winning a title with Ferrari has been his childhood dream.
Factors preventing Leclerc from battling Max Verstappen
Ferrari came up with a competitive car in the 2023 season. As the 2022 season began, days of glory for Ferrari did not seem so far away.
But it soon faded away as the team made multiple blunders both in terms of strategy and their car upgrades.
They could not beat Red Bull and finished P2 with the hope to come back stronger in the 2023 season. Over the winter break, the entire dynamic of the team changed.
Vasseur took over the baton from Binotto, and chief strategist Iñaki Rueda got demoted and was replaced by Ravin Jain. All these changes were made to ensure a strong return but the season began with a DNF leading to finger-pointing.
Car-wise, two main factors that were a big issue in 2022 were tyre degradation and reliability. With the DNF in Bahrain, it is clear that the team has not been able to find a solution to that yet.
Other than that, the Italian camp seems to be in a restless situation. With Sanchez quitting, rumours about Rueda exploring other options have also been by Italian media.
Culture watchers Gino Rosato and Jonathan Giacobazzi have already left the door. Whether or not these many changes in personnel are direct factors, remains to be seen.
On top of that, Italian media also suggests that there is a climate of fear among other engineers to take over Binotto’s work. Or in simple words, no one dares to take responsibility for the risky choices with Ferrari.
Therefore, the development of the SF-23 is said to have ended early. Even some of the ideas on the table never got examined.
