Charles Leclerc has openly admitted that Ferrari are “very far” from their expectations for 2023, which were made ahead of the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.
According to Leclerc, Ferrari’s goal in 2023 was to go a “step better” than they did in 2022 and win the title.
Winning the championship is something the Maranello-based team certainly won’t be doing this season, with the Italians sitting fourth in the Constructors’ Championship and 312 points behind Red Bull.
To add to their woes, Ferrari have claimed just three podiums in the opening 12 races.
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It’s been nothing short but the season from hell for Leclerc and for Ferrari, who have rarely showed promising pace.
As a result, the Monegasque admits that the first half of the season hasn’t been a success.
“It didn’t go well,” Leclerc admitted, as reported by Speedcafe.com.
“Before the first race, the target was to go a step better compared to last year, which was to win the world championship.
“If we look at the first half of the year, we are very far from where we put our expectations before the season.”
Despite their struggles, Ferrari have shown signs of progress in recent rounds, following an upgrades package.
Leclerc was very competitive recently at the Belgian Grand Prix and at the Austrian Grand Prix, two events he claimed podiums at.
The 25-year-old revealed that Ferrari completed a “reset” after understanding where the SF-23 was struggling, with him praised the team’s “incredible reaction” to turn things around slightly.
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“As soon as we understood, we reset, and there was an incredible reaction from the team,” said Leclerc. “They brought upgrades, some a month and a half early, and this requires a lot of effort from everybody at Maranello.
“It has helped us have great results, although we still need to try to understand because if I take a step back, in the last two races we expected to be much more competitive in Budapest than Spa. In the end, it’s the opposite.
“So these are the things we need to look at because maybe we didn’t optimise the package in races like Budapest, and maybe we’ve done something that was surprisingly good on a track like Spa.”