F1 Opinion: How Charles Leclerc and Ferrari can beat Max Verstappen and Red Bull to the title

Charles Leclerc's championship run in 2022 was not the best. While it did start well, with him winning two of the first three races, from that point onwards, things started unraveling.

The Monegasque went through a horror run, suffering DNFs in Barcelona and Baku, and losing a sure win and a P2 finish respectively. Ferrari's strategic errors saw him lose wins at Monaco, Silverstone, and Hungary. To top it all off, he also binned his car in France while leading the race. By midseason, Max Verstappen had overhauled the Ferrari driver's championship lead and built up a strong advantage for himself. The title battle was all but done after the Spa (Belgian GP) race weekend, as Leclerc revealed last year.

Coming into the 2023 F1 season, Charles Leclerc will be hoping to make amends and put together a better title challenge. So how can Ferrari and Leclerc beat Verstappen and Red Bull? We feel the following changes would help.

---

#1 Fix Ferrari's reliability

Ferrari's drop in form in the second half of the season was attributed to the team turning down the engine as its reliability issues started to become a headache. Looking back at what only Charles Leclerc suffered during that stretch should raise alarms about the capabilities of Ferrari's power unit.

The power units blew up without warning in Barcelona and Baku. Consequently, Leclerc was forced into taking extra PU components as early as Canada.

Now, rumors abound that Ferrari has solved these reliability issues in its power unit. The Italian squad is also expected to have a 30bhp boost in power. That is a significant value and if the team can translate that gain into lap time then we're looking at a very potent challenge from the team.

---

#2 Cut the clutter

Often asked but never truly answered: Why has Ferrari failed to win a championship in 15 years? The answer to that lies not only in what we see on the track but in the car's performance and the personnel involved as well, who play a role in the team's success and failure.

What happens in the background plays a crucial role in a team's success or failure. The fact that Christian Horner, during his 18-year stint at the top of Red Bull, has seen six different team principals at Ferrari (Jean Todt, Stefano Domenicali, Marco Mattiaci, Maurizio Arrivabene, Mattia Binotto, and now Fred Vasseur) should be a sign of how stressful the situation is at the Italian outfit.

There's too much pressure from within Ferrari and it often has a debilitating effect on the team. It works nervously, fears failure, and hence ends up panicking and making mistakes. Charles Leclerc's failed strategy in Monaco and Silverstone is a key example as the team seemed too nervous not to falter.

With Fred Vasseur on the team, there must be a more objective approach to how it should approach things. It's important not to have too many voices around, as cutting that clutter while keeping things simple will be of great help to the team.

---

#3 A clear driver hierarchy (Charles Leclerc as the leader) might not be a bad thing

The Silverstone race made it amply clear that despite Charles Leclerc being the faster of the two Ferrari drivers and the only one battling for the championship, Ferrari did not want to impose team orders.

The team did not want to be in a situation where it would come across as favoring one driver over the other. This, however, brought forth a situation where Leclerc expected favorable treatment as he was in contention for the title. The team, however, was unwilling to do so, and consequently, it all resulted in confusion during the race.

Winning doesn't come easy for anyone. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of guys to make hard decisions. Most importantly, it takes a team unbothered of ruffling a few feathers along the way.

Last season, Ferrari was unwilling to be bold in that manner and hence ended up with a scenario where the lack of clarity destroyed Charles Leclerc's title challenge. The last two seasons have shown that he is the one with superior speed. It is about time for Ferrari to realize that as well.

Making all these changes won't guarantee a title for Ferrari and Leclerc, but it will give them a much better chance of competing than last season.