Charles Leclerc impressed with Ferrari's 2023 car as he targets first F1 title

Charles Leclerc says his only target for 2023 is to win the Formula One world championship as Ferrari unveiled their SF-23 car on Tuesday.

The 25-year-old emerged as an early title favourite last year after winning two of the opening three races, but he would eventually finish runner-up to Max Verstappen – 146 points behind the Red Bull star.

A number of driver errors, reliability issues and, above all, strategy blunders saw Leclerc and teammate Carlos Sainz Jr.’s seasons fall apart, with team principal Mattia Binotto losing his job as a consequence.

But with former Alfa Romeo boss Fred Vasseur now in charge, there is renewed confidence that 2023 is finally going to be Ferrari’s year, especially after Leclerc’s comments at the launch show.

‘It feels good, the first kilometres with this new project after doing so many kilometres on the simulator,’ the Monegasque driver said after driving the SF-23 for the first time in front of a huge crowd of Ferrari fans.

‘It feels special, the car was running well, smooth, everything went really well. Obviously, with two laps, it’s difficult to go into details but I already gave my feedback once I was in the car there to the engineers to get the first feeling.’

‘The goal is to win, clearly. I am really looking forward to getting back in the car and trying to win that championship.

‘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.’

Early reports suggest that Ferrari’s new power-unit will make the SF-23 two-tenths of a second quicker than its predecessor but we won’t know for sure until pre-season testing next week.

‘We need to bring the mindset to do a better job tomorrow than today and to be always trying to improve the system.’

Eight teams have launched their 2023 car so far, with just Mercedes and Alpine to go now, ahead of the first race of the new season in Bahrain on March 5th.

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