Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur believes the presence of Ferrari's strong United States fanbase adds "further incentive" to the team's push to close the gap to Red Bull. The Scuderia struggled at the start of the season with poor tyre degradation, allowing Aston Martin and Mercedes to jump ahead, though all three teams were some way off the pace set by runaway leaders Red Bull. But signs of a return to form came at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, where Charles Leclerc demonstrated strong one-lap pace to secure pole position for both the Sprint and main event. The gulf in race pace between Red Bull and Ferrari remained, however, with Leclerc losing nearly half a second per lap after the early Safety Car period bunched the field up.
Unusual track
F1 returns to Miami this weekend, with Ferrari hoping to build on the positivity instilled by their performance in Baku and with optimism rising for future upgrades as the sport travels to Europe in the coming weeks. "We are in the middle of a particularly busy part of the season with five races in six weeks from Baku to Barcelona and our work continues on track and in Maranello to develop our car package," explained Vasseur. "Miami is yet another unusual track with all the idiosyncrasies of a street circuit, which both our drivers enjoy, so I'm confident we can make another step forward with the SF-23. "The United States has historically been a very important market for Ferrari and the Scuderia has a strong fanbase here, which is a further incentive to keep pushing to close the performance gap to the championship leaders."
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