Continued struggles with tyre wear and race pace made it difficult for either driver to compete at the front end of the grid, although Leclerc was able to take pole position and a spot on the podium in Azerbaijan as well as in Austria.
Like most, any efforts or signs of progress were quickly overwhelmed by the performance of Red Bull, which dominated the season entirely by winning 21 out of the 22 grands prix across the season. But it was Ferrari who prevented the Milton Keynes marque from a perfect run.
Carlos Sainz took pole position and a dramatic race win in Singapore as F1’s reigning champions floundered behind him — Leclerc holding Verstappen to a fifth place finish through an excellent display of defensive driving.
Leclerc’s skillset would be on full display for the remainder of the season too, with further podium finishes in Belgium, Mexico, Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi. If he begins 2024 with the same run of form, Ferrari may once again dream that its long wait for another world champion is soon over.
2024: Ferrari looks for a fight
Ferrari’s goal in 2024 is to close the gap to 2023’s runaway title winners, in the hope of slowly building back toward the regular race-winning performance it had early in 2022.
Problems with reliability and excessive tyre wear seemed under control as the team left Abu Dhabi having secured its third podium in four races, but the question remains: will it buckle again once under the strain of a title challenge?
Still widely regarded as a world champion in waiting, Leclerc should have no issues in leading from the front alongside Sainz who was F1’s only non-Red Bull grand prix winner in 2023 and continues to have equal status to his team-mate in 2024.
After taking over as team principal at Ferrari in January of last year, the 2024 season will mark the first full campaign under Vasseur’s management.
Ferrari 2023 F1 driver line-up
Charles Leclerc | Carlos Sainz |
- Carlos Sainz will be replaced by Lewis Hamilton in 2025
- Charles Leclerc has extended his contract in a multi-year deal
- Antonio Giovinazzi acting as reserve driver for 2023 season
Key personnel
Team Principal and General Manager: Frédéric Vasseur
First appearing in the F1 paddock in 2016, acting as team principal for Renault, Vasseur has spent the majority of his career managing the midfield. But a move to the Sauber Group in 2017 to become its managing director as well as its team principal is a true indicator of the value he can hold.
As team principal, he oversaw the development and meteoric rise of Charles Leclerc, who made his F1 debut with Sauber in 2018 before being promoted to Ferrari the following year. The Frenchman has also had a working relationship with Ferrari since 2019, when Alfa Romeo Racing began running Ferrari power units in its F1 cars. So Vasseur was an obvious candidate to replace Mattia Binotto who resigned from his post at the end of the 2022 season.
Vasseur joined in early January and hasn’t had an answer to Ferrari’s biggest problem just yet, but 2024 could show the first signs of improvement.
Head of Power Unit Area: Enrico Gualtieri
Engine reliability was a sore point for Ferrari in 2022, causing retirements in Spain, Azerbaijan and Austria during the early stages of its title campaign, and forcing the team to limit the power unit’s output.
But it’s an issue that is rumoured to have been solved for 2023 under the watchful eye of Enrico Gualtieri, who has headed Ferrari’s power unit area since 2019.
The Italian has been a major part of F1’s most successful constructor since 2010, when he was appointed Head of Engine reliability – experience he will need to put to use if Ferrari want to content for another world title.