F1: Ferrari predicted to start 2023 at the front
Ferrari is said to be “very happy” with their new package for the 2023 season, with rival teams hearing of the Scuderia’s satisfaction with their current trajectory.
Haas team boss Guenther Steiner, appearing at the Lorenzo Bandini Trophy Awards ceremony in Faenza where driver Kevin Magnussen collected the accolade, has offered clues about optimism from within Ferrari.
“On Thursday I met Mattia Binotto, and he told me that next season’s engine will be the bomb,” he said.
“In Emilia Romagna, there is a lot of support for Ferrari. And if it [the engine] is competitive, it will be positive for us too.”
Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz confirmed that his sights are already firmly on 2023.
“It will be a new year, a new car, new rules for the floor. A new chance for us,” said the Spaniard.
“This is a new opportunity for us. I believe that we will draw conclusions from the results of this season, and the team will build a great new car.
“I am ready to fight and I look forward to progress from Mercedes too. It looks like they will join us in this battle,” Sainz added.
According to McLaren’s team principal Andrea Stella, as quoted by Gazzetta.it, the Maranello squad is making substantial progress on its 2023 package:
The teams to beat also in the next F1 season are Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes, which at the moment compete in a different category from ours.
“I know that Ferrari are very happy with the new car, and therefore they will certainly have a competitive start.”
As for Ferrari late season downturn, team boss Mattia Binotto said why the Italian outfit so notably struggled in Mexico.
“We know that we stopped development on our car quite early, focussing instead on 2023,” he said.
“Somehow, I’m not too concerned by the rate of development because I know when we stopped developing.
“Mercedes have developed the car more than us while we stopped, so I’m not too worried about them. Surely, there would have been more potential to be extracted, but there was not the financial availability of the budget cap to do it,” Binotto concluded.