Ferrari has insisted that it is “in our DNA” to win following a difficult Formula 1 campaign.
The Italian squad entered the season hoping to challenge for the World Championship after returning to race-winning form in 2022.
However it was unable to compete against rivals Red Bull who dominated the campaign, winning 21 out of the 22 races staged.
Ferrari was the only team to stop a clean sweep for the Milton Keynes-based squad as Carlos Sainz prevailed in Singapore during an off weekend for Red Bull.
The team slipped to third place in the Constructors' Championship after ending last year's campaign as runner-up, with its last title coming back in 2008 with the Constructors', while the last Drivers' was in 2007 with Kimi Raikkonen.
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'It's a mixed feeling'
Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur has highlighted that the squad will scale back expressing its expectations ahead of next year's campaign following 2023's disappointment.
However, Sporting Director Diego Ioverno insisted that winning is part of Ferrari's DNA as it strives to make improvements going forward.
“Obviously in our DNA there is the need to win,” Ioverno told media including RacingNews365.
"We are here to try to win the championship. Obviously we didn't succeed, so we cannot be positive overall.
"Sometimes we showed good performance. I think the guy's execution and managing the weekend has been also [at] many races positive.
"We scored some good points, we won [in Singapore]. It is a mixed feeling.
"It is a mixed bag. We’ll see how it ends up and then we will give our conclusions."
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Bohunkgearhead
Ferrari has a bad habit of failing to make the best use of their drivers. Alonso, Vettel, Leclerc and Sainz. Too bad!
Feersumenjin
“Obviously in our DNA there is the need to win,” Now just how did that morph into a headline that this article appears under?
Gordo62
I don’t think Ferrari can win a championship with the current technical director leading the engineering team. He has been in charge of chassis and aero performance since 2019 under Mattia Binotto. He was made technical director by Vasseur in 2023. All Ferrari’s since 2019 have been fundamentally flawed. Tire degradation has been an Achilles Heel since 2019. Ferrari have also suffered from a lack of front downforce, a lack of rear downforce (loose rear end) and a lack of overall downforce. The 2022 car was crippled by TD39. It got worse in 2023 with the higher ride height rule change. If Ferrari want to win they need a better floor and a better suspension system. If F1 had allowed a limited form of active suspension Ferrari and other teams wouldn’t be struggling so much to compete with Red Bull.
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Patrick Chapman
Singling out one person in a squad of 800 is hardly a reasonable assertion to make. Not one single person is responsible for the design, construction logistics etc at Ferrari. All it means is that their creation was not quite as good as their competition. Perhaps they will get there one day and perhaps thy won't. Time will tell. And adjusting the rules set to try and make your favorite team win is also unreasonable as another team nailed it and built the most successful F1 car to date with those same rules. Mattia Binotto is an engineering genius and built one of the best F1 engines ever but again he did not do it all by himself. He surrounded himself with the best brains he could find of which the current technical director is one. Give Vasseur some time, he has a different philosophy to previous team principals and he is not easily pushed around by Ferrari management. It's all about getting a team of people working together effectively and Vasseur my just be the person to do that at Ferrari - if they let him. Continuity in a team has proven to be very important ie Red Bull, Ferrari have yet to learn this basic premise.
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Gordo62
F1 needs a better way of managing ride height aerodynamics. Controlling ground effects downforce with full passive suspension systems is too difficult. The fact that Red Bull won 21 of 22 races is proof. Pat Symonds is on record as saying his biggest disappointment with the new GE regulations is the suspension regulations. They are still debating what to do for 2026. Symonds suggested gas springs but the teams rejected it. Someone with your surname should appreciate this problem. As for Enrico Cardile he has been responsible for all final decisions with respect to aero and chassis performance. First under Binotto and again under Vasseur. The inconsistency and confusion with respect to development upgrades and perpetual failures leave me with little hope of Ferrari being successful under Cardile’s leadership of the chassis and aero team.
Patrick Chapman
@Gordo62 You may well be right in your assertions. Bear in mind that Symonds works for FOM and not FIA so all he can do is make suggestions, FIA ultimately will decide the new rules. I had the conversations when the vertical oscillation (porpoising) reared it's head and stated then that the way to control it was with active suspension. With the amount of computing power available today it would be quite a simple system compared to the original Williams system. The problem is that it would make the cars too fast and quite a few tracks would not cope with the speed. There is talk that the FIA are considering a simplified partial active suspension system that may fit within the budget cap which of course is another consideration. There are some amazing engineering and technical brains in the FIA and FOM and they are well aware of most things regarding the cars so they hardly need you or I to point out the obvious. And it wasn't just Colin who dreamed up the first ground effects, he had a whole team working on that one. As for Ferrari, they have the best brains and talent available to them in their team currently. They may be good enough or not, we shall see but give Fred a bit of time and lets see what he can do with them. After all they are only a fraction off the best.
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