Charles Leclerc gives a damning verdict on Ferrari’s race pace

After pre-season testing, it was rather obvious to everyone that Red Bull were the team to beat again. At least early on. Most considered Ferrari to be their closest competition, as they had been for most of last year. But there’s a new threat: Aston Martin, who, at least in Bahrain, had better race pace than the Maranello team. The tire degradation issues have persisted and they’re even a bit behind Red Bull on one-lap pace. To top it all off, Charles Leclerc’s race ended in tears with a retirement.

Last season, too, Ferrari lost many points through reliability failures. But this particular issue, which apparently lay in the control electronics and energy store components, was unrelated to last season’s issues. Ferrari never expected it and were caught completely off-guard. Even worse, the two parts had been replaced from within the allocation (two allowed for each) as a precaution. This was before even a single racing lap – and clearly, the precautionary measure didn’t work.

Neither part is recoverable, according to formu1a.uno. This means that unless the parts that were changed as a precaution are fixed or working again, Leclerc will have to take at least a 10-place grid penalty in the next race in Jeddah. Clearly not ideal. Reliability is one thing, but the incredibly disappointing race pace is another worrying sign. If Ferrari hope to compete for the title this season, these things will have to be swiftly fixed.

As per Autosport, Leclerc said: “It’s not good enough. We are far from Red Bull, so we need to push and understand what did they find during this break because they are on another planet on race pace. I mean, for now, we don’t know. We are fast in qualifying, but we are not fast in the race, and it’s not by a little.” he then explained that the team needs to look into the difference between one-lap pace, which is close to Red Bull, and the race pace, which is a “second away in some parts of the race”.

Read More: Why did Charles Leclerc retire from the Bahrain GP 2023?

Charles Leclerc: Ferrari are just too slow during the race

Ferrari had degradation issue last season as well: Along with the reliability, it was probably their doom. Even in the second half of 2022, they remained mostly competitive on one-lap pace, but could not keep up during the race. This time around, in the season opener, Aston Martin had much better degradation than them, and in the latter stages, Fernando Alonso passed Carlos Sainz. Obviously, this can’t happen if Ferrari want to challenge Red Bull.

Charles Leclerc is concerned with the very high degradation, which the drivers need to push more to account for. He said: “We need to push more in order to extract the performance out of the car so then the degradation comes up. We need to look into it because for now we are really far from the winning race pace. I think it’s very difficult to separate deg and performance. I think eventually we are just too slow in the race, and because we are too slow we are pushing a lot, and we are destroying the tyres, because we are slow.”

It’ll be interesting to see how Ferrari fight back. The next race is Jeddah, and they’ll have to get back to business and extract maximum performance there to beat Red Bull. One thing they have going for them is the fact that their straight-line speed is better than it was last season. Tire degradation is also not such a big factor as it was in Bahrain.

In case you missed it:

• Charles Leclerc already facing engine penalty after Bahrain GP retirement – Report
• Frederic Vasseur: Ferrari never expected Charles Leclerc’s race-ending issue at the Bahrain GP

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