28/12/2022
NEWS STORY
Ferrari has become the second team to announce the launch date of its 2023 contender.
Almost a week after Aston Martin revealed that its car will be unveiled on Monday February 13, Ferrari confirmed that the wraps will come off its - yet to be designated - car a day later on February 14, St Valentine's Day.
Much will be expected from the new car following the disappointment of this season, when the Maranello outfit appeared to grab defeat from the jaws of victory.
Scoring a 1-2 in the season opener in Bahrain, Ferrari scored another win in Melbourne, but then Red Bull put together a run of six wins while its Italian rival suffered all manner of calamities in terms of reliability, strategy and driver errors.
Going into the summer break, Charles Leclerc insisted that all was not lost, claiming that he could repeat Sebastian Vettel's feat from 2013 when he returned from the break and won all nine remaining races to claim the title.
In fact, not only did the Monegasque fail to claim another win he only made it to the podium on three further occasions.
At season end, the Italian team only just having managed to hold off Mercedes and retain second in the standings, such was the clamour from the Italian media that team boss Mattia Binotto tended his resignation, the team subsequently recruiting Alfa Romeo's Frederic Vasseur.
A resurgent Mercedes is only going to add to the pressure at Ferrari in 2023, and those fans who remember the long drought in terms of titles between 1979 and 2000, will be only too aware that the Italian team rarely learns from its mistakes and all too often makes things worse by simply 'rearranging the deckchairs'.