Ferrari, despite a phenomenal recovery in the 2023 season, failed to defend its runner-up position against Mercedes. The reason, as per F1 CTO Pat Symonds, was their failure to make the most of the SF-23. Symonds believes the car had much more in it than what the results suggest. Speaking with Ted Kravitz during the first day of pre-season testing, the 70-year-old said,
“Ferrari were better than their championship results really showed last year. There were times when they shot themselves in the foot, but fundamentally, they had a car that was very quick in qualifying and was reasonable, not as good as Red Bull, but reasonable in the race. So, if they’re putting in place things to take that further, yeah, it could be a very good move.”
Ferrari failed to start 2023 on a winning note like the 2022 season. The car encountered handling issues in windy conditions and also had some unlucky mechanical failures. On other occasions, either the strategy let the drivers down, or it turned out to be the other way around.
However, as the season progressed, the engineers stationed in Maranello picked a better understanding of the concept and developed the car accordingly. The same was reflected in the results post-mid-season break.
Carlos Sainz made the most of this progress and became the only non-Red Bull driver to win a race (Singapore GP) last year. However, Ferrari could only play the catch-up game with Mercedes, which had developed a healthy lead. In the end, the Silver Arrows bagged the second place in the standings with a gap of just 3 points.
The SF-23 may have won the Singapore GP, but it still lacked the race pace to beat Red Bull regularly. Resultantly, team boss Frederic Vasseur vowed the 2024 car would be 95% different from its predecessor.
Can Ferrari take the fight to Red Bull in 2024?
Despite the failure to bag second place in the championship, Ferrari ended the 2023 season on a high. The SF-23 wasn’t too far behind the championship winner RB19. Also, the reliability issues did not show up too often towards the end of the campaign.
However, the car’s unpredictable behavior was something that stayed throughout. Ferrari engineers made it their life’s mission to get rid of the issue in the SF-24 and delivered just that. In fact, Charles Leclerc lauded them for making the car more predictable to drive right after the shakedown run.
The 2024 challenger returned for a longer run on Wednesday for the first day of pre-season testing. While Max Verstappen maintained a massive lead of 1.240 seconds over Carlos Sainz in P3, the SF-24 got some good miles in with a total of 133 laps. 69 of those laps came in through Sainz while Leclerc put in 64 laps.
The Monegasque went in first, driving through the morning session. Leclerc remained in second place behind Verstappen, with a gap of 0.699 seconds until Sainz took over.
The Spaniard bettered his teammate’s timing but failed to retain second place against Lando Norris. At the end of the day, Leclerc finished in seventh, 1.903 seconds behind Verstappen.
