15/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Charles Leclerc admits concern as Ferrari has yet to understand what is wrong with its 2023 contender.
Sad to admit, but winning the Le Mans 24-Hours last weekend is likely to be as good as it gets for Ferrari this year, then again Enzo admitted to only competing in F1 originally to finance his beloved endurance racing cars.
While Fred Vasseur continues to assure all and sundry that the team is making progress and that it will all turn out right in the end, Charles Leclerc is still somewhat shell-shocked by his Barcelona weekend, the Monegasque still none the wiser in terms of the issue with his car.
Sadly, as the Maranello outfit continues to lose ground to Mercedes and Aston Martin, he fears another difficult weekend in Canada.
"Overall, I think all the team is not satisfied with the performance we are showing on track," he told reporters, "it is very far off our expectations at the beginning of the season.
"We are very clear with ourselves and this is very clear to us," he added.
Following his problems with his car on Saturday in Spain his team changed the entire rear end of his car, but to no avail. However, even more puzzling is the fact than on returning to Maranello couldn't find anything wrong with the car, certainly nothing that stood out.
"We need to understand these things and for now we don't have the reason, which is a little bit more worrying," he said. "That's where we need to push, to understand the reason of it, because obviously the feeling was really bad.
To be honest, it's the first time it has happened in my career," he added. "If you look at all the left-hand corners that is where I was struggling and I said it straight away after qualifying, we can see that on data clearly that I am losing 0.65s or 0.7s in all the left-hand corners. But there are no real reasons for it yet, so on that I cannot say much more to be honest."
However, he (publicly) refuses to write-off the season.
"Looking ahead, we need to just keep pushing, bring upgrades as quickly and regularly as possible, which is our aim now to try and close the gap to the guys in front and also the gap in terms of race pace, because even though I struggled a lot on Saturday, Sunday wasn't great either.
"So that's where we are trying to push at the moment. What gives me confidence, though, is that there is a clear direction that we want to work and improve. This is what makes me believe in the project."