The Ferrari 2023 is already on the track

The new Ferrari immediately puts on a show. Only in Maranello could they stage such a show to present the new single-seater. Anyone can put on a show in New York like Red Bull did. Just have the money to do it. No one had ever thought of abandoning static presentations, immediately sending the single-seater onto the track. Ferrari did it for guests, authorities, sponsors and fans. Live and connected via web from the world.

It all begins with Mameli’s anthem played in front of 500 Ferrari Club fans admitted to the stands. It seems to be still at the Sanremo Festival with the Fiorano track transformed into a stage for the most awaited by Italians to sing, who hasn’t won the drivers’ championship since 2007. It is the first time that a single-seater from Maranello appears first on the move and then stationary inside the garage with the “underpants” to mask the bottom. The SF-23 immediately makes her voice heard by sending an adrenaline rush like no other to date has managed to do. “Only at Ferrari do you feel so much passion and can organize something like this!” say the drivers who drove it immediately. Leclerc two laps, Sainz three laps. The maximum allowed by the rules: 15 kilometers of Demo day. It will be 100 tomorrow for the filming day. Fred Vasseur tossed a coin in the air to decide who was the first to hit the track, who then promised: “Now I’ll put it in my pocket and I won’t use it again”. Before him Jean Todt had decided with a coin who to win the Dakar of his boys.

“Forza Ferrari Semper” is the mantra launched by the CEO Benedetto Vigna as he greets the guests. The honors go to him because President John Elkann is in the United States. And then he gets angry when they call him the absent president. Forza Ferrari Semper is taken up and repeated by the drivers who first greet the fans, then go to the track to taste the SF-23. “It feels good”. It looks good to me, says Charles Leclerc. Objectively after two laps in slow motion he can say little else. “The sensations are good, I only did two laps but that’s enough to understand that everything is working well. It’s a special day, the launch at Fiorano and driving in front of the fans and the company is something special. Everything went smoothly. The feeling it’s good, I missed driving”. He didn’t take for granted that everything would go smoothly. When you start a Formula 1 car for the first time, you never know. “It took courage to do it in front of so many people. Congratulations to all,” added Sainz.

To understand which car the SF-23 is, all that remains is to wait for the tests scheduled for February 23rd to 25th, a week before the Grand Prix: “Only after the tests in Bahrain will we understand if we will have the same progress seen on the simulator on the track. For now we can only say that we have worked well, that we have tried to improve last year’s car in what were its weak points, not just in terms of reliability which at a certain point lacked and prevented us from pushing as we would have wanted”. Sainz confesses that he tried to push immediately after Charles had ascertained that everything was in order. “After the 50 kilometers of the filming day I will have more precise sensations, but only in Bahrain with the right tires will we really understand the car”.

The SF-23 is an evolution and not a revolution. When you look closely you see that she has changed in the bellies, in the front wing, most likely also on the bottom where it is kept hidden for now. The regulations didn’t allow for upheavals and there wasn’t even a need. The SF-75 until it was able to exploit all the power was the fastest car on the track, so much so that it started winning three of the first four races. “The mWorld Cup won’t end in Bahrain whether you start by winning or not”, says Fred Vasseur who hasn’t yet spoken about the organization (“I’m continuing my meetings with everyone, but now I want to verify the behavior of people under pressure during a race weekend). Leclerc avoids comparisons with a past named Binotto, but says: “I am very impressed with how Fred has fitted into the team. He immediately understood what Ferrari is. He works in a very clear and direct way and I like how he manages to make everyone perform at their best ”. Charles does not ask (for the moment) to have lead rider status, but suggests that he expects a different treatment from last year if a similar situation were to repeat itself with him fighting for the championship and his team-mate lingered: “At first we’ll start at equal and we will try to push each other. It wouldn’t make sense to make choices right away, even to be able to extract the best potential from the car. If then during the season one of the two should have an advantage in the standings…”.

This SF-23 has only one problem: it is bound to win. He has no time to waste. Everyone knows and says it. No one is hiding: “We are here to become world champions”. Or at least to try to the end.