27/02/2023
NEWS STORY
Though he believes the SF-23 is "an improvement" on its predecessor, Charles Leclerc admits there is still work to do.
Last year got underway with a victory in Bahrain that for a while suggested Ferrari might finally upset the Mercedes - Red Bull domination of the sport.
However, while another win followed in Australia, things subsequently began to fall apart, courtesy of a combination of poor reliability and strategy, driver errors and an ever improving Red Bull.
Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz came away from testing with the 4th and 5th quickest times, however, unlike Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas who went quicker, the Ferrari pair, like pace-setter Sergio Perez, were on the C4 compound.
Heading into the season opener, despite the obvious strength of the Red Bull package, Leclerc is feeling confident but admits that there is still room for improvement.
"I feel we've got some work to do," he told reporters. "Red Bull seems to be very strong in these three days.
"I've been trying a lot of different driving styles," he revealed, "I seem to have found my way a little bit, finally. I expect us to be a bit quicker in the straights, maybe struggling a little bit more in the corners."
Indeed, having learned its lesson in 2022 when it lost out on the straights, the Italian team tried a number of rear wings over the course of the test and the general consensus is that the SF-23 is faster than the Red Bull on the straights, albeit with the usual caveats of fuel loads and so on.
"I won’t go into too much detail, but I think that was done in the right way," said Leclerc, when asked about the teams rethink in its approach to aero efficiency. "I think we have a less draggy car, so that should be better this year.
"It changed other characteristics," he added. “All in line with what we expected, but we still need to find the right set-up for these new characteristics.
"We are still working quite a bit on trying to find the sweet spot of the car in terms of set-up so I hope there's some margin on that still, that we haven't found the sweet spot yet."