Teams can evaluate their progress thus far and work on upgrade packages for their cars without the usual summer shutdown regulations.
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Charles Leclerc is adamant that Ferrari is “fully motivated” to start the 2023 season off right, and he believes the time between the races in Australia and Azerbaijan will help the team’s effort to improve. Teams can evaluate their progress thus far and work on upgrade packages for their cars without the usual summer shutdown regulations being in effect because there are four weeks between rounds three and four. Leclerc believes the break came at a good time after Ferrari’s difficult start to the new season, which has left the renowned Italian team in a distant fourth in the constructors’ standings and nearly 100 points behind leaders Red Bull.
“I think in the situation we are in as a team, we take this as an opportunity to work as much as possible during this break, in order to get upgrades as quickly as possible and be as competitive as we want sooner in this season,” said Leclerc. “It’s still a very, very long season. We are fully motivated to get back on top and we’ll try to use these weeks [before Azerbaijan] in the best way possible.”
Leclerc’s performance in the first three races of 2023 stands in stark contrast to his performance in the first three races of 2022, when he amassed two victories and a second-place finish to hold a 34-point early championship lead before his and Ferrari’s challenge crumbled. He currently holds down the tenth position in the drivers’ standings with just six points after finishing seventh in Saudi Arabia. He had previously retired in Australia due to an accident with Lance Stroll of Aston Martin and in Bahrain due to a technical issue.
“We know the story about last year, and now it’s all about focusing on what we can do better to improve and to come back to their [Red Bull’s] level. We know where we need to work on and now we just need to make it happen,” continued the Monegasque. “We seem to be quite good in terms of qualifying whenever the peak grip is there, but then whenever we lose a little bit of grip in the race, it starts to be very, very difficult, and we seem to lose quite a lot of performance, so on that we need to work.”
According to team manager Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari has petitioned the FIA, the organisation that oversees Formula One, in an effort to obtain a right of review regarding the penalty imposed on Carlos Sainz during the Australian Grand Prix. During a dramatic late restart at Albert Park, Sainz tipped Fernando Alonso’s Aston Martin into a spin. Logan Sargeant also crashed into Nyck de Vries’ back, and Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon’s Alpines clashed.
The announcement of a five-second time penalty for Sainz came through as the order was reset to the previous restart ahead of a final lap to the checkered flag behind the Safety Car, causing the Spaniard to broadcast a string of angry messages. Sainz eventually crossed the finish line in fourth place, but the penalty he received caused him to lose points and fall all the way to 12th, leaving him “too angry to talk” in the moments following the race (as you can see in the clip above).
“We did a petition for a review of the case – we sent it to the FIA,” Vasseur confirmed on Thursday. “As we are discussing with the FIA… I don’t want to discuss any details of this discussion. The only thing is [the] Gasly/Ocon [collision], for sure we had also Sargeant/De Vries [colliding] into Turn 1, and the reaction of the stewards was not the same.”
