How a confident Ferrari launch has changed the perception of its 2023 F1 chances

Ferrari threatened to almost come third in a two-horse race as the 2022 Formula 1 season drew to a close. Following the headline engine failures in Azerbaijan, Spain and Austria, the team wound down the turbos for the second half of the campaign to boost reliability.

They were even more asthmatic in Mexico. Carlos Sainz mustered only fifth ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc when they eventually reached the chequered flag a minute adrift of victor Max Verstappen. With Mercedes a genuine threat for the spoils before opting for a much too safe tyre strategy, just 40 points split the two squads scrapping in the wake of Red Bull ahead of the final two rounds.

What’s more, it was abundantly clear that Mercedes needed to address the excess drag and bouncing that had hobbled its W13 so significantly. After falling to third in the constructors’ championship to gain a kinder allowance under the Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions, and with Red Bull facing a 25% cut in windtunnel time and CFD hours after winning the title plus exceeding the 2021 cost cap, everyone craving a fraught two-way fight for honours in 2023 has been keeping a keen eye on Brackley's winter powers of resurrection.

Meanwhile, the hype around Ferrari had long since been dying down. After starting the new ground-effects era so promisingly with victories for Leclerc in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to give the Monegasque a 46-point lead, shambolic strategy and the catastrophic unreliability were the main factors in its drivers’ and teams’ title chances crumbling completely. But its off-season fixes had hardly created a cause for major optimism.

Team principal Mattia Binotto was put in a position of needing to hand in his notice last November, with the Italian duly being given the chance to jump before he was pushed. Despite having worked to install a ‘no blame’ culture at Maranello, it was Binotto who ultimately picked up the responsibility for Ferrari unwelcomely adding 2022 to the 2018 and 2017 campaigns when the team ultimately failed to end a title drought dating back to 2008.

Of course, Fred Vasseur was plucked from Alfa Romeo-Sauber as Binotto’s replacement. The ex-Renault chief brings plenty of paddock experience and a pre-existing and healthy relationship with Leclerc to help alleviate the immense frustration held by the Scuderia’s star driver. Not to be overlooked, the current Ferrari top brass finally have a ‘chosen one’ at the top rather than retaining Binotto, who was promoted by the previous regime.

However, with Binotto previously occupying a split role but the team so far only appointing Vasseur, Ferrari is still operating without a publicly declared replacement technical director. While the design department won’t be left entirely rudderless, when it comes to dictating the development path and timeline for the SF-23 challenger, a clear leader is critical. Such a high-profile absence means it's easy to be sceptical about the team’s 2023 chances.

With new team boss Fred Vasseur, Ferrari has its 'chosen one' to helm its F1 title challenge

Photo by: Ferrari

That’s not truly alleviated by Vasseur. Although regarded as an excellent operator and well-liked by much of the paddock, he doesn’t immediately offer a direct fix for Ferrari’s strategic shortfalls. While a small restructure of the pitstop planners has taken place, Alfa’s own recent strategy track record left much to be desired.

And unlike Mercedes with its W13, the F1-75 didn’t have an obvious aerodynamic or chassis shortfall to address in the pursuit of a guaranteed step forward in time for 2023. The power unit proved immensely accelerative but unreliable.

That aside, the core concept of the car design was sound. It could at least trouble the minimum weight limit of 798kg from the off, unlike the Red Bull RB18 that was rumoured to be as much as 20kg overweight prior to its summer update.

That lithe nature enabled Ferrari to beat Red Bull at what had previously been its own game, having the pace advantage at tighter tracks such as Melbourne and Barcelona. Nor was the 2022 car too draggy, overly reluctant to heat its tyres, or unable to provide sufficient downforce - issues faced by the rest of the pack.

“It feels good, it feels a little bit different… from the work we’ve done [before the launch], I think we are going in the right direction. We took a lot the 2022 car weaknesses and tried to work on them. Especially on the simulator and had some really positive signs" Charles Leclerc

Issues with unpredictable car balance and excessive consumption of the Pirelli rubber were the main maladies, but were more infrequent inconveniences rather than ever-present ailments.

With no technical director, no strategy supremo joining the pitwall to fix the shortcomings of last year, plus no particularly low-hanging fruit to pick with car performance, it felt as though Ferrari was already on course for third place this year, surely about to slip behind a resurgent Mercedes. And yet one Valentine’s Day morning in Maranello has dramatically changed that perception.

The launch of the SF-23 was particularly well-executed thanks to the lack of tedious filling for time, the backdrop of a raucous tifosi-filled grandstand and, the cherry on the cake, was the car smoothly undertaking 15km of demonstration laps around Fiorano. It was a proper show, and a proudly confident one at that.

Ferrari's in-person car launch was a smooth debut for the SF-23

Photo by: Ferrari

Then there was the self-assured tone taken by the drivers and technical team. After his first couple of miles aboard the car, Leclerc said: “It feels good, it feels a little bit different… from the work we’ve done [before the launch], I think we are going in the right direction. We took a lot the 2022 car weaknesses and tried to work on them. Especially on the simulator and had some really positive signs.

“And on the simulator, it seems good. There was also some development mostly for the race [and] this will have to wait and see [in] Bahrain because obviously on the simulator it’s very difficult to reproduce that.”

Ferrari won’t know just how competitive its creation is until qualifying in Bahrain. But the promise of those early miles offers reassurance. Lewis Hamilton says he knew from his very first laps in a windy Silverstone shakedown last year that the W13 would never be the car to take him to an eighth world title. If Leclerc, even during such a short run at reduced speeds, felt in any way similarly pessimistic, he certainly didn't convey it on Tuesday.

While it would be unwise to make big-money bets based on body language and reading too much into what someone has to say, the Ferrari tone is starkly different to that of McLaren and Mercedes. The former talks repeatedly of the requirement for “realism”; the latter speaking from launch about the importance of early developments and upgrades. This is not the norm of teams seeking, and expecting, to hit the ground running.

Given how badly Ferrari’s challenge fell apart in 2022, it’s unlikely that its immediate contentedness is indicative of cockiness or complacency. That would be an absurd mistake to make based on the very recent past. As such, if the camp’s early optimism and confidence to run the SF-23 publicly on its debut are anything to go by, perhaps F1's audience should be similarly buoyed.

Perhaps Ferrari's initial promise from the opening races of last season wasn’t a one-time thing and that it hadn't wasted the opportunity provided by the regulatory reset to win again. Maybe it’s not up to Mercedes to come back swinging to provide at least a two-way fight for the title in 2023.

Is the Prancing Horse ready to legitimately challenge for glory again?

Photo by: Ferrari