Why "impatient" Leclerc is keeping faith in Ferrari for F1 2023
Despite strong early results and qualifying dominance, Charles Leclerc and Ferrari's 2022 Formula 1 title hopes eventually faded away against the strength of Red Bull and Max Verstappen. But Leclerc believes progress has been made, and is upbeat that the Scuderia can compete for honours once more
End of season analysis of the 2022 Formula 1 campaign will most likely point to the weight reducing upgrade push that Red Bull unleashed from the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as the real turning point of the title battle.
Before then, Ferrari appeared comfortably on top, with Charles Leclerc winning two of the first three races, and main rival Max Verstappen facing the double whammy of poor reliability and a car that wasn’t perfectly suited to him.
From Imola onwards, though, as Verstappen was able to step up a gear with an RB18 that better suited his pointy front end preferences, Leclerc was always going to find it hard to get back in the game. But despite Leclerc and Ferrari’s campaign being most publicly derailed by a combination of costly reliability problems (Spain and Azerbaijan), strategy issues (Monaco and Silverstone) and driver error (Imola and France), it was not actually until the scale of Red Bull’s pace advantage became clear after the summer break that the Monegasque driver felt for sure all hope was lost.
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