No points. Ferrari returns home from Melbourne with a bad loot. Technically it is fourth force on the track behind Red Bull, Aston Martin and Mercedes. Unfortunately, the photograph is clear, but the Australian GP highlighted other shortcomings within the Scuderia and these cracks should be as alarming as those linked to the lack of competitiveness of the SF-23.
In the crazy race at the antipodes, the two drivers were also missing in the decisive moments, a sign that the climate inside the Racing Department is less relaxed than we are led to believe. The Maranello team can bless the three-week break that the F1 calendar allows, because the stop will be useful for putting every piece of the puzzle back in its place, after a very different start to the season from the ambitions of those who hoped to fight with Red Bull and Max Verstappen for the world championship.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23
Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images
The team showed up in Melbourne after analyzing a mountain of data and deliberating a red that was in fact at zero point of its season. As if the pre-season tests and the two races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia didn’t take place. The technicians directed by Enrico Cardile seem to have found a development line, aware that the SF-23 today lacks competitiveness.
While waiting for the news to arrive, which will be diluted between Baku, Imola and Barcelona (where the evolutionary package should be completed), in Australia the focus was on finding out what the actual potential of the current red is. And so the bottom rejected in Jeddah was put in the car for the whole weekend and for the first time the SF-23 seemed less sensitive to variations in height, being able to afford a set-up more grazing the asphalt, meeting the design choices that had fueled so many hopes that then went up in smoke.
There is little to rejoice, mind you, because Charles Leclerc was permanently third at Sakhir when he was forced to retire due to the blackout of the control unit, so Ferrari in Australia did not make a leap in quality, but did find a working basis and a certain consistency.
The race among the kangaroos, therefore, offered us a red that has begun to show no signs of the usual degradation of the hard rubber which has been the nightmare of the first two GPs. The race took place at low pace after the first red flag: the goal was to get to the checkered flag with just one pit stop and a train of whites, so the race pace was adjusted to avoid the second theoretical stop. In this scenario, Carlos Sainz was able to keep up with Hamilton and Alonso, considering Verstappen out of competition.
In this technical framework, in which important points could be brought home (Ferrari is fourth in the Constructors’ category with 26 points, less than half of those of Mercedes which is third!), the drivers were sensationally missing. Charles Leclerc is not serene: he is aware that 2023 is another year to throw away and, inevitably, he gets agitated.
Charles Leclerc, Scuderia Ferrari, returns to the pits after retiring in Melbourne
Photo by: Lionel Ng / Motorsport Images
The Monegasque was never on the ball all weekend and botched the decisive moment in qualifying on wrong information from the Cavallino “wall”: Charles was perfectly aware that the red needed two laps to put on the tires in temperature. They told him that to make the second run of Q3 he would have to settle for just one preparation session, because they feared the arrival of a downpour of rain. The “prince” listened to the team, while Carlos Sainz reasoned with him, taking the risk of indulging in the second launch lap.
The result was that Leclerc, when he found his teammate’s red at his feet, thought that something had gone wrong in team management and made no secret of it, complaining in plain text. Whoever said that Carlos had to give the Monaco’s wake saw things that hadn’t been planned. It was better that he tried to do the best of him, instead of chasing the ghosts that led him to commit an ingenuity on the first lap of the race.
Leclerc in braking at turn 3 closed too early on Lance Stroll and ended up shot in the sand, ruining his GP. The race finished before it started, collecting second zero in three GPs. The frustration of the moment threatens to show Charles a darker reality than it is, but Ferrari, anxious to find a decent set-up for the SF-23, is by now accustomed to giving up on preparing the qualifying lap, as if the drivers they were just the terminal chip of the machine and not human beings who need to find the confidence to attempt the loop the loop between the walls.
It shouldn’t be surprising, therefore, if those two tenths that the Monegasque is capable of putting on treacherous tracks like Melbourne don’t come out and also the balance of the race is negative due to his premature retirement.
Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-23
Photo by: Jake Grant / Motorsport Images
Even Carlos Sainz took his time to ruin the Ferrari weekend. The Madrid-born played a consistent race remaining on Fernando Alonso’s hook. At the start of the third start he gave his compatriot a spin: he hoped to have opened the way to the first podium of the SF-23 and, instead, he was sentenced to a 5-second penalty which dropped him to 12th place in that final crazy.
The mistake was indisputable, while the sanction had an exaggerated effect, but Carlos only has to do mea culpa, because he’s aiming for a podium that Ferrari doesn’t deserve at the moment. The Spaniard, although aware of the mistake, tried to discharge his responsibility by taking a very tough media position (“… I feel robbed”), while it would have been better if he capitalized on a very important placement for the Scuderia.
Sainz wanted to go towards the race to have his say at the college of sports stewards, but he was “rebounded” without getting anything. Ferrari must be very careful because that of the drivers is a capital to be preserved. And if both of them ruined their race in Melbourne due to a mistake, it’s a sign that the climate is too agitated and the pressure is very strong. The frustration of the team that Fred Vasseur spoke about after Melbourne must not undermine the morale of the riders…
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