Ferrari, lots of trouble. What’s wrong (reliability) and where you can intervene – Corriere.it

«Now my job is to make a precise analysis of the picture, it is clear we did not expect such a start. Leclerc’s reliability problem was like one shock: without warning, nothing like this had ever occurred, neither in tests nor in the factory».

Fred Vasseur must solve the first big deal since he became team principal: Ferrari got off to a very bad start in a season announced as that of the comeback, in which it is called to fight in a stable manner for the World Championship. The Bahrain GP offered a dominant Red Bull, an Aston Martin in great shape and a red and a Mercedes to forget. “But one thing must be taken into consideration – explains the Frenchman -: the Sakhir circuit amplifies detachments and weaknesses, it is not the litmus test for everything”.

Here last year Verstappen ended with a retirement, but after having fought for a long time with Leclerc. This time Ferrari has never been in the game and the abysmal detachments from Red Bull sent Leclerc into depression. A reaction is already expected from the next race, in Jeddah (March 19), a completely different track where the engine and aerodynamic efficiency count, qualities that the SF-23 has.

He also showed them in qualifying in Bahrain, but masking the limits is one thing dry ride and it is one thing to be able to express a high performance over the course of a competition. The first thing to fix, Vasseur explained, is reliability: not only the problems with the hybrid part of the engine, different from those that compromised the 2022 season, but also a whole series of hitches that hindered the tests and which denote excessive rush in production times or an extreme search for the lightening of every single detail.

An example? The single-pilon rear wing, tested in Bahrain in free practice and rejected because it flexed too much: «It was a prototype, we pushed hard to get it here in time. She wasn’t ready, but we will see it again because it will help us with the speed. After setting it up». Give her air bubbles in the nose (a problem that emerged in the tests) to the flow conveyor lost in qualifying in Bahrain (“If that had happened in the race we would have had to retire because of that” said Vasseur), to many other small problems that emerged at the start of the season, the Ferrari SF-23 is an immature machine and difficult to tune. In Maranello, however, they believe that it has potential, superior to the F-75 that preceded it.

But how to make it work remains a mystery: Sainz suffered even more than Leclerc from very high tire degradation, and was forced to give up third place to Alonso. “The problem with our car is that as soon as you push, you cook the tyres,” said the Spaniard. Why? Vasseur tends to exclude structural defects related to the project and the technical philosophy of Ferrari (other than Red Bull) by linking the issue to incorrect ride heights.

With a bad balance the car jumps and wears the tires. If this were the case, meticulous work would be enough, first on the simulator in the factory and then on the track, to correct the defects. The championship is very long, 22 races still to be played, and the match will also be decided on the basis of developments. Ferrari have a lot to work on, better not to panic now and stay focused.