Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko has openly admitted that he doesn’t “understand” how Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur “sees everything in a positive light”, with the Frenchman remaining very upbeat despite the Italians’ miserable start to the 2023 F1 season.
It’s been an incredibly challenging opening three rounds of the season for Ferrari, with the side dealing with issues both on and off the circuit.
On the circuit, Ferrari are dealing with two pressing issues, both of which will likely be evident this weekend at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix if they haven’t been addressed since the Australian Grand Prix.
The first issue is power unit reliability, with Charles Leclerc having retired from the season-opener in Bahrain after his control electronics failed.
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To make matters worse, both of Leclerc’s legal sets of control electronics failed, which meant he had to take a grid penalty in Saudi Arabia.
With their power unit being an issue once again, it’s been speculated that Ferrari turned their engines down in Saudi Arabia and Australia, in a bid to avoid another failure.
Given that the Baku City Circuit boasts the longest straight on the calendar – the start/finish straight is 2.2km in length – Ferrari will have to turn their engines up if they want to challenge for a top five, let alone the rostrum.
Their other concern currently is a real lack of performance, with the SF-23 having been disappointing at every round this season.
Whilst this could have something to do with their engine being turned down, Ferrari are currently fourth in the pecking order and in need of urgent upgrades.
Upgrades are scheduled for the Miami Grand Prix next weekend; however, nothing new is expected on the car in Baku.
Off the circuit, Ferrari are dealing with a bit of an employee crisis, after former head of vehicle concept David Sanchez joined McLaren.
As well as that, it was revealed on Tuesday that Laurent Mekies is also set to leave the team, in order to return to Faenza to work for AlphaTauri.
To balance this out, Ferrari have supposedly signed two unnamed engineers from Red Bull, but that they won’t start working for the side until 2024.
Despite everything going on, Vasseur has remained positive and full of belief, with the Frenchman seemingly being confident that Ferrari will turn things around.
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Whether they do or don’t remains to be seen, with Marko having no idea how Vasseur is remaining so upbeat.
“Mercedes obviously wants to improve. They are coming to Baku with new updates,” Marko told Blick.
“And Ferrari has been underperforming so far. However, I don’t understand how team principal Vasseur sees everything in a positive light.”