The 2022 season ended with a small victory for Ferrari, as the team managed to hold off a late advance from Mercedes to secure second place in the constructors’ championship.
Charles Leclerc’s ability to beat Sergio Perez in Abu Dhabi also means he secured the runner up spot in the drivers’ championship, but the team would have hoped for more.
The Scuderia started the season on fire, building up a healthy lead over Max Verstappen and Red Bull in both championships in the early stages.
It was reliability woes and strategic blunders that cost the team a shot at the title however, as both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz missed out on a huge haul of points as a result of their team’s decision making.
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Due to the nature of Ferrari’s shortcomings, team principal Mattia Binotto came under pressure to keep his job and eventually resigned from his role after the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
Fred Vasseur has replaced the Swiss at Ferrari and has now thanked Binotto for making the handover of the reins as smooth as possible.
“The process was crystal clear. Even if we had rumours in the press before or during Abu Dhabi, we didn’t discuss before.
“We had the first discussion the week after Abu Dhabi. It was very quick as a process. Then [I] had a call with Mattia, even met Mattia during the handover, [and] we had a one to one discussion.
“Thanks to Mattia for this, as I appreciated the move from Mattia to stay, to wait for me, to discuss with me – it was really appreciated from my side.”
Vasseur has been very positive about his first weeks in charge of the team, suggesting that the reliability and strategy woes may now be a thing of the past.
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The new Ferrari boss has the chance to see his two drivers in action for the first time before F1 heads to Bahrain in just under a month.
The Scuderia are ending January with a ‘wake up’ test at Fiorano, Ferrari’s private racetrack near their factory in Maranello.
While Leclerc and Sainz will be driving last year’s car during the test, it will give both of the drivers a chance to shake off and off-season rust before pre-season gets underway.