The Bahrain Grand Prix highlighted a lot of issues for Ferrari, who had entered the season hoping to go one step further than last year and win the championship.
Qualifying was impressive for the Scuderia, as Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz locked out the second row and were not massively far away from the Red Bull’s ahead of them.
Ferrari’s true problems were in the race however, as their tyre degradation saw them struggle to keep pace with the Red Bulls and even the Aston Martin’s.
The team’s reliability issues from last season also appear to have continued into this year, as Charles Leclerc was forced to retire from the Bahrain Grand Prix with an energy store related engine problem.
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With Sainz struggling with his tyres, the Spaniard was easily overtaken by the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, who went on to secure his 99th podium in Formula 1.
In terms of race pace, Aston Martin appear to have the edge over Ferrari, with the AMR23 looking like a phenomenally impressive car so far this season.
Despite Aston Martin’s strong start to the season, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has claimed that his team are closer to Red Bull that Aston Martin, hinting that the Scuderia are still the second fastest team on the grid.
“If you only look at the first part of the race, I think we are closer to Red Bull than to Aston Martin,” said Vasseur.
“[But] this is race one and we don’t have to draw any conclusions.”
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With Red Bull looking to be head and shoulders above the rest of the grid already this season, 2023 may well boil down to a race for second place between Aston Martin and Ferrari.
Both teams will be hoping to upgrade their cars over the course of the season but Aston Martin’s low championship finishing position last year will give them access to much more testing time than the Scuderia.
Should Fred Vasseur wish to impress during his first season in charge of Ferrari, beating Aston Martin in the championship will be the bare minimum expectation for the Frenchman and his team.