18/06/2023
NEWS STORY
Scuderia Ferrari leaves Canada having shown clear signs it has made significant progress.
For the first time, the SF-23 performed consistently throughout the race, so that Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were able to run at a strong pace while doing a good job of managing the tyres, to the extent that both drivers made one less stop than their closest rivals. Alongside this progress on the technical front, the strategy calls from the pit wall were effective, especially the decision to leave both cars out on track during the one Safety Car period. It allowed the drivers to clear a train of slower cars which otherwise would have been very difficult to overtake because of the very significant DRS effect at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit.
After not having much luck in Saturday's qualifying, Charles and Carlos lined up tenth and eleventh on the grid and then were stuck in traffic up until lap 12, when the Safety Car came out after George Russell hit the barriers. Charles and Carlos both stayed out on the Medium tyres, moving up to fourth and fifth places, so they were then able to push harder, going longer than any of the others. They were thus able to build up enough of a gap to pit for Hard tyres without losing position and then match the pace of those ahead, not losing ground to the eventual top three finishers, Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. There is still room for improvement, but today's race produced clear evidence that the team has made a step forward.
The World Championship is back in action in two weekends' time, with the ninth round of the season, the Austrian Grand Prix in Spielberg.
Charles Leclerc: It was a solid race that confirmed the good feeling I had in the car on Friday. We stayed out during the Safety Car phase to be able to run in free air, because we knew that it would be key for us and our strategy proved to be the right one. We couldn't have done better than P4 today considering where we started.
We must not forget that this is quite an unusual track, so we will keep pushing to reconfirm these positive steps in Austria.
Carlos Sainz: Today was a positive race. We were able to push continuously and recover after a challenging qualifying. We made the right strategy calls and we had a strong pace, especially with the Medium tyre. The car felt good and we could push a bit more, also extending the first stint quite a lot, so I'm happy with that.
We're making progress in the right direction and we need to keep up the good work.
Frederic Vasseur, Team Principal: It was a good race for us, confirming that we are working in the right direction. After a poor qualifying yesterday, we rediscovered the race pace we had seen on Friday, helped in this by a good strategy that took us out of traffic, so that Charles and Carlos had the confidence to push throughout the race. It was notable that in the second half our drivers were matching the lap times of the top three. We are progressing race by race. We will continue to focus on working solidly on the course we have set ourselves, while going into every small detail to ensure we can have a perfect weekend from Friday through to Sunday.