Ferrari’s Championship Drought Has Leclerc Looking for Answers
Charles Leclerc admits Ferrari has struggled to understand Formula 1’s ground effect era cars, with the team now facing a championship dry spell after their promising start in 2022.
“I think for us there’s not only one reason. There are many reasons which, at different times, played a role,” Leclerc explained.
The Monegasque driver started 2022 as Max Verstappen‘s main title rival, but Ferrari’s early advantage quickly disappeared.
“In the beginning of ’22, we actually started off quite strong, but we were struggling with porpoising, where Red Bull had a very stable platform,” he said. “And they were actually quite a lot overweight, so as soon as they took off that weight, they were suddenly at the level where they’ve been since then.”
Ferrari’s problems worsened last season, failing to secure even a single race win.
The team made a strategic gamble that’s yet to pay off.
“For last year, we focused very early on next year’s car, which I hope is a bet that will be a winning one,” Leclerc said. “But for sure, it has some influence from the last two thirds of the season where we’ve been struggling more than others because we didn’t bring that many upgrades.”
One of the biggest challenges has been the disconnect between simulation data and real-world performance.
“It’s just been a generation of car that was very, very difficult to understand,” Leclerc admitted. “What worked back at the factory – I think everybody has been surprised once or more times that when you bring it on track, it doesn’t correlate exactly to what you were expecting from that part.”
This unpredictability has hampered Ferrari’s development while rivals surged ahead.
“That was the challenge of it. And yeah, and other teams did better, especially McLaren and Red Bull.”
Ferrari fans are now pinning their hopes on the team’s early shift to developing this year’s car. Could the Scuderia’s sacrifice of recent results finally pay off with a return to championship form?
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