“It Was a Disappointing Season”: Charles Leclerc Considers 2023 Failure Regardless of Triumph Over Mercedes

Sabyasachi Biswas | 24/11/2023
“It Was a Disappointing Season”: Charles Leclerc Considers 2023 Failure Regardless of Triumph Over Mercedes

Ferrari have recovered brilliantly after the initial slump of this season and are closing in to defeat Mercedes for P2 in the Constructors’ Championship. Despite this, Charles Leclerc believes the 2023 F1 season has been a failure for his side.

Speaking about this, the Monegasque told Motorsport Italia as per Junaid Samodien, “The best moment was probably the last race. But if I have to give an honest opinion it was a disappointing season, especially if we consider what we did last year.”

With this, Leclerc also highlighted what Ferrari missed this year as compared to 2022. The 26-year-old said, “We expected to be able to fight for the championship, but after the first race we immediately understood that it would be very difficult.”

The Prancing Horse indeed had multiple difficulties in 2023 in terms of both race pace and reliability. However, they recovered brilliantly from P4 and now also have P2 in their sights. They first overtook Aston Martin in the standings and now are just four points behind the Silver Arrows with just one race to go in Abu Dhabi.

Charles Leclerc and Ferrari aim to fight Red Bull in 2024

Max Verstappen and his team have been extremely dominant in 2023. The Austrian team claimed 20 out of 21 race wins this season and has more than double the points of second-placed Mercedes. However, Charles Leclerc and Ferrari will hope to reduce the gap to the mighty Red Bull next season.

Ferrari are reportedly bringing in a radical change in their sidepod concept and, therefore, the aerodynamics by following Red Bull. This is something even Mercedes are reportedly following. Hence, the teams fighting for P2 this season are all vying to battle it out for the title with Red Bull in 2024.

Nevertheless, Red Bull are still expected to be the favorites next season. Most importantly, they are expected to remain dominant before the new regulations are laid out in 2026. However, teams next to them such as Ferrari, Mercedes, McLaren, and Aston Martin would surely be working extremely hard during the winter break to slash the massive gap.

Post Edited By: Vidit Dhawan
Charles Leclerc Max Verstappen

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Sabyasachi Biswas

Sabyasachi Biswas is an F1 journalist at The SportsRush. With over one and a half decades of love for the sport and five years of experience in the field, he dreams to be a regular at the paddock when the lights go out. A Red Bull fan and F1 fan in general over the years, he enjoyed watching Felipe Massa, Sebastian Vettel, and Max Verstappen dominate the track. Apart from F1, he's also a big-time Madridista and Federer fanatic. He was a sub-junior level footballer, won inter-district quizzes and debate competitions back in school. A travel freak throughout, he tries different cuisines and learns new cultures whenever he's away from the keyboard.

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