Charles Leclerc sets sights on winning Ferrari’s first F1 drivers’ title for 16 years

Charles Leclerc finished runner-up to Max Verstappen last year

Charles Leclerc has set his sights on trying to win Ferrari’s first Formula 1 drivers’ title for 16 years this season.

Leclerc, who finished second to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen last year, said he believed Ferrari had done a “great job” on their new car, which was unveiled on Tuesday.

“The goal is to win, clearly,” said the 25-year-old from Monaco. “I am really looking forward to getting back in the car and trying to win that championship.”

Leclerc drove the car for the first time at the Fiorano test track during the launch.

He said: “Last year was a good step forward. We need to do just the same this year and hopefully get that championship. That is the target for the team and for me, too – get more wins, hopefully be more consistent from the first race to the last race.”

His team radio was transmitted on the broadcast and he said the car “feels good”.

Team-mate Carlos Sainz is due to drive the car later on Tuesday.

The last Ferrari driver to win the World Championship was Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, and the team’s history since then has been one of near misses – they came closest with Fernando Alonso in 2010 and 2012 – and disappointment.

Their season in 2022 was a major step forward compared with their lack of competitiveness in the two previous years.

But although Leclerc established a comfortable championship lead after the first three races, the team quickly fell away, their year torpedoed by strategy errors and reliability problems.

The repeated mistakes on race management led to former team principal Mattia Binotto leaving his post and he has been replaced by Frederic Vasseur, formerly of Alfa Romeo-Sauber.

Ferrari have unveiled their new car for the 2023 Formula 1 season

The Frenchman said: “So far it is intense. You can feel the responsibility. But the most important is to be successful – we have to deliver. The most important is to win and the challenge is in front of us.

“When you are at Ferrari coming from 2022, you can’t have another objective than to win.

“I don’t want to stay it will be easy because Red Bull and Mercedes will have the same target and only one team and driver will win. But we need to have this kind of target. We need to bring the mindset to do a better job tomorrow than today and to be always trying to improve the system.”

‘It’s more extreme’

The launch was held at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track in front of 500 tifosi – Italian fans – and the car will run on track later in the day with Leclerc at the wheel.

Ferrari head of chassis Enrico Cardile described the car as “an evolution of the car we raced last year but in reality it has been completely redesigned”.

He said the nose, front wing and front suspension were completely new, switching to a low-mounted track rod or steering arm from a higher one. The bodywork, Cardile said, “is more a continuation but it’s more extreme”.

Ferrari are expected to have a significant step forward on engine performance this year as a result of fixing the reliability problems of last year.

These cost Leclerc potential wins at the Spanish and Azerbaijan Grands Prix, and then forced the team to run the engine detuned for the rest of the season to avoid their recurrence.

Engine specifications are frozen in F1 until 2025 but teams are allowed to make changes for reliability reasons. Ferrari have done so and believe they will now be able to run the engine in a higher performance mode.

Sources close to the team say this will mean a gain of about 20bhp, or 0.2 seconds a lap compared with the second half of last year.

Vasseur said: “Last year, it was not a secret that it was not the best aspect of the season, but we did a good job at the factory and in terms of power we will be there. I think we are in a good place.”

Assistant team principal Laurent Mekies added: “We have learned some of the things last year the hard way.

“We are concentrating on giving our people the best platform to express themselves.”