Formula 1

Ferrari mood 'perfect' but Leclerc yet to find 'sweet spot' with 2023 car

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The mood inside Ferrari is "perfect" after Formula 1 pre-season testing in Bahrain, new team boss Fred Vasseur claims.

While the Scuderia didn't set too many attention-grabbing times over the three days, the general consensus is Ferrari will start the 2023 season as the nearest challenger to Red Bull.

But as Charles Leclerc explained, the focus during the test was on adapting to the SF23, which has looked to improve one key weakness Ferrari had versus the RB18 last year.

“I think our car changed a little bit of characteristic this year, I expect us to be a bit quicker in the straights, maybe struggling a bit more in the corners,” said the Monegasque.

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“And with this three-day test, I can say that we are still working quite a bit on trying to find the sweet spot on the car in terms of setup.

"So there’s some margin on that still, that we haven’t found the sweet spot yet.”

During the Bahrain test, the Ferrari appeared to be one of the worst cars on the track for porpoising despite floor changes being made to try and reduce the phenomenon.

But Leclerc also played down those concerns as the team tried to find the limits of their new car. 

"I don’t think we are particularly worried about that," Leclerc replied.

"We ran various tests with our main focus on the car’s set-up. We are working hard and it’s still too early to make any judgement yet."

As for team boss Vasseur, he was very satisfied with his first pre-season at the helm at Ferrari.

"It has been three intense days of work for everyone in the team," he commented. "We have scanned a number of items on the car and ticked many of the boxes of our programme.

"The main target was getting as much mileage under our belt as possible and we did that, although it’s also true that you always want to do more and have more time.

"Whenever we managed to put everything together the performance seemed to be there, but we are clearly still in the process of getting to know the car - so it’s too early to say anything.

"[We weren't] worrying about lap times or what the others have been doing, simply focusing on ourselves.

"The mood in the team is perfect and we are in a good shape to start this long season."

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