The 2022 season started off better than Ferrari could ever of imagined, with the team who have so often been lightyears away from Mercedes and Red Bull coming home with a one-two finish in Bahrain.
The Scuderia had clearly mastered the new regulations that came into effect last year and flew out of the blocks with the fastest car on the grid, with Charles Leclerc helping the team build up a healthy lead in both championships.
Max Verstappen and Red Bull eventually went on to claim both championships, with Ferrari’s power unit’s poor reliability shooting the team in the foot on multiple occasions.
Charles Leclerc was forced to retire from two races last season as his engine failed while his teammate suffered a similar fate three times, even catching on fire at the Austrian Grand Prix.
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While a lot of work will have gone into maximising the performance of the SF-23 ahead of this upcoming season, Leclerc is also confident that the team have solved their reliability issues.
“The big work was done on reliability. I don’t want to express too much, but there has been a lot of work,” he told Sky Sports.
“I hope we won’t have a lot of reliability issues. We finished second in the drivers’ and constructors’ championships, and the next logical step is to win. We know how difficult it will be. But we are putting a lot of work in.
“It will be a difficult championship, but we’ll do everything in our hands to make it work.”
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It was not just Ferrari who felt the effects of the team’s unreliable power unit, as both Alfa Romeo and Haas are engine customers of the Scuderia.
Their woes were really highlighted in Baku, as both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz of Ferrari experienced an engine failure, as did Guanyu Zhou of Alfa Romeo and Kevin Magnussen of Haas.
The SF-23 is reportedly considerably faster than Ferrari’s car last year, meaning that if their reliability issues are truly banished, they could be the early favourites for both championships this season.