Vasseur: Still 'big room for improvement' for Ferrari SF-23

Ferrari F1 boss Frederic Vasseur has dismissed an in-season change of concept for the Scuderia's car insisting its contender still has "big room for improvement".

Ahead of the start of the 2023 season, Ferrari was earmarked as a favourite to hit the ground running in Bahrain.

But six races into its campaign, the Italian outfit's SF-23 has proven to be no match for Red Bull's dominant RB19, while Aston Martin's AMR23 has established itself as the second-best car on the grid.

Miami marked the start of Ferrari's upgrade, with the team implementing changes destined to iron out the SF-23's "peakiness", as described by senior performance engineer Jock Clear, and to improve the car's overall aerodynamic efficiency.

Ferrari is giving itself more time to assess its upgrades, but should the latter disappoint, the team won't go down the path followed by Mercedes and change the concept of its car.

Vasseur explained why.

"There are a lot of questions, the first one is about the package," he told the media in Monaco.

"It's not just about the potential and package and upgrades, we also have to upgrade the car into a better window.

"The first target for us is not to just put downforce on the car, it is to be more consistent and on top of the car.

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"We have big room for improvement with the current car in terms of performance, and the second [question] is do we have to restart from scratch on the group or on the car.

"I would say that as long as I am convinced we can improve the current car, it would be a mistake, during the season, to change completely the target, first for timeframe.

"Should the team decide today to during the 2023 season to bring a completely different car, I think it will bring us to October and I am not sure it's the best solution to improve in the mid-term view.

"We already have next year's car in the wind-tunnel, and we are working on it, but to try to introduce a completely different car in the season, it is quite critical at this stage of the season."

Vasseur played down suggestions - and claims by his own drivers - that Ferrari's SF-23 is a difficult beat to tame. But the Frenchman admitted that an overall lack of consistency is weighing on the car's performance, especially in race trim.

"You always have to stay calm, if the car was so difficult to drive, I can't imagine we would be one-tenth off Verstappen [in Monaco GP Qualifying]," he said.

"Sometimes [the media] are jumping on the drivers five minutes after Qualifying, and I can perfectly understand their frustration, but the comments that they are making half-an-hour later are a bit different.

"It's not about the qualifying for me. If we are suffering from something, it is [a lack of] consistency over the lap, over the race or from corner to corner and it's where we must improve but mainly for the race, but we are working on it.

"We made a decent step, but it is true that in Miami we were too inconsistent, but we performed well and the first stint of Carlos [Sainz] was a very good one, so we have to understand this and come back stronger.

"It's not that we are off the pace [due to] potential [of the car], but let's see later for the concept."

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