Ferrari gets self-critical after failed F1 2023 campaign, Frederic Vasseur admits ‘we started on the wrong foot’

Ferrari would like to consider the season of 2023 as a learning point for the team as many things went wrong for the Maranello outfit.

Ferrari gets self-critical after failed F1 2023 campaign, Frederic Vasseur admits ‘we started on the wrong foot’

Carlos Sainz, Fred Vasseur and Charles Leclerc (Via IMAGO)

The 2023 season has ended with Ferrari finishing at a mediocre P3 spot in the Constructor’s Championship. The two Scuderia recruits could not perform up to the expectations of their man. Charles Leclerc finished P5 in the Drivers’ Standings and Carlos Sainz finished P7 in the driver’s standings. Frederic Vasseur has talked about what went wrong with Ferrari in this season.

Following the mediocre P3 finish in the constructors from Ferrari, the team boss Frederic Vasseur opened up about his feelings regarding the same. The French boss claimed that the team got on the wrong foot from the Bahrain GP. Further, Vasseur talked about the points that Leclerc missed due to the unwarranted penalties in the subsequent races of the season.

YouTube video
We started on the wrong foot with Bahrain, that when we had to stop [when] we were P3, and we get the penalty for the second race, It meant that, for Charles, it was almost 25 points of penalty after two events, plus the points that we are giving to the others – the two Mercedes were behind us.
Vasseur said, as reported by speedcafe.com.

In addition to this, Vasseur also insisted that the fans could run the list and check where the crucial points were lost for the team and exclaimed that the team gave up on more points than the competitors. Finally, the boss added that the team needed to be more efficient and opportunistic for the following season of Formula 1.

FS Video
But it’s not only this one. You can do the list, trust me, I did the list a couple of times. I have in my head a classification without the issues. Overall, you have ups and downs during the season but for sure we gave up more points that our competitors, even our direct competitors. We have to be more opportunistic and more efficient.

How many races did Ferrari face a problem in the season?

It seems that there were many occasions where Ferrari or the drivers messed up their races and caused some major harm to the points of the teams. From the get-go, Leclerc DNF’ed from the Bahrain GP and also suffered a similar bout in the Australian GP. Additionally, the Monegasque DNF’ed in the Dutch GP as well as the Austin GP due to some or the other incident.

Charles Leclerc.
Charles Leclerc (via IMAGO).

Hence, Leclerc missed out on a lot of potential points for the team as he did not take part in a total of four races due to in-race issues. Similarly, Carlos Sainz also DNF’ed from a whopping six races in total. These issues seriously sabotaged the points for Ferrari.

Despite the great form of the drivers, Vasseur and the strategy crew severely sabotaged the races for the drivers and hence became the reason to finish just P3 in the constructors. If Ferrari can get it together for the following season, the team can return to their winning ways and score a comfortable position in the constructor’s Cup.

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