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Charles Leclerc would have ended the 2022 F1 season frustrated and disappointed at how it unfolded. Even though it was statistically his best season, he'd have been left disappointed because he had the potential to achieve much more last year.
He started the season with a win in Bahrain where he beat Max Verstappen in a straight fight. He then finished second in Jeddah, the second race of the season, and dominated the third race weekend in Australia.
After the first three races, Leclerc had a 40-point lead over Verstappen, who eventually won the Drivers' Championship.
Just when everything was going smoothly and the title looked like a formality, it all changed when Charles Leclerc had his first DNF of the season in Barcelona. He was comfortably leading the race and was on his way to winning the race when, out of the blue, the Ferrari power unit shut down.
For Leclerc, this started a disastrous run of losing race wins and crucial points due to either reliability, team errors, or driver errors as well.
Heading into the 2023 F1 season, however, things are a bit different. Mattia Binotto is not the Ferrari team principal anymore, Frederic Vasseur is. Under the Frenchman's guidance, can Charles Leclerc take the Italian team to its first title since 2005? There are reasons to believe this is highly unlikely, and here are three of them:
#1 Both Mercedes and Red Bull are much better operationally
One of the key things that differentiated Ferrari from Red Bull Racing and Mercedes was the operational efficiency of both teams.
Red Bull are arguably the best team on the grid when it comes to picking the right strategies during a race. They have also hardly put a foot wrong when working in tense situations.
While Mercedes, on the other hand, might not match Red Bull blow for blow, the Brackley-based team has also been very effective in keeping things simple and getting the best results. When it comes to keeping calm in tense situations, few teams beat Mercedes.
At the other end of the spectrum is Ferrari, who were a house on fire whenever things got tense. The biggest example of this was Monaco last year, where Charles Leclerc went from having a commanding lead in the race to finishing fourth purely due to poor strategic decisions. This is just one of the many instances where this happened last season and was almost a reflection of the operational deficiency that Ferrari had.
To make things worse, Mattia Binotto never acknowledged the problem openly and instead tried to deviate attention to other things. While he has now left the team, it is unclear if the short off-season is enough for Vasseur to address one of the major weaknesses of the Italian team and transform them.
#2 The Fred Vassuer-Charles Leclerc combo needs time to mature
In essence, the Charles Leclerc-Frederic Vasseur combo has the potential to be the next big partnership in F1. The latter is a reputed, astute, and experienced leader who has achieved a lot of success leading ART in the junior categories. Leclerc, on the other hand, is a spectacular talent who has the potential to be the next big star in the sport.
Together, these two might be able to form the kind of relationship that leads a team to championship success. Having said that, all of this happening in their first year together at Ferrari is a huge ask. Vasseur needs time to bed in, understand how the different teams on the grid interact with each other, and get used to being a Ferrari leader.
If there was already a power vacuum at the top of F1, then you could expect the Vasseur-Leclerc combo to take over. At the moment, though, there is no such vacuum as both Red Bull and Mercedes are firing on all cylinders.
While Fred Vasseur could take Ferrari, and Charles Leclerc, to the top, it is highly unlikely to happen in the very first season.
#3 Ferrari lacks the experience of winning titles
The last time Ferrari won the Constructors' Championship was in 2008 and the last time the team won a Drivers' Championship was in 2007. Since then, the team has had multiple runner-up finishes through Felipe Massa, Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, and Charles Leclerc. The title, however, has remained elusive.
The enormity of the challenge in front of Ferrari can only be explained by the fact that there have only been two teams — Red Bull and Mercedes — that have swept all the titles since 2010. Both these teams are well-oiled machines that know how to get the job done.
Although Ferrari, a team with a rich history, is the most successful team in F1, they have not won anything in a long time. When you don't win titles for this long, you tend to lose the experience of how to win.
Bouncing back from that rut takes time and, despite having a talent like Charles Leclerc within the team, the recovery will not be instantaneous. Ferrari need time to get back to the top and 2023 might just not be as successful as the tifosi hope.
