{"id":18770,"date":"2024-02-29T06:06:24","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T11:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=18770"},"modified":"2024-02-29T06:06:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T11:06:24","slug":"charles-leclerc-establishes-ferrari-development-aims-for-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/02\/29\/charles-leclerc-establishes-ferrari-development-aims-for-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc establishes Ferrari development aims for 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Charles Leclerc is cautiously optimistic about Ferrari&#8217;s SF-24 baseline, but he describes mid-season progression as essential.<\/h3>\n<p>Traditionally, Ferrari&#8217;s pace relative to their rivals tends to decline during a season. Immediate rivals Mercedes and Red Bull traditionally make better improvements with their upgrade programmes.<\/p>\n<p>However, this trend began to change last year &#8211; which was Fred Vasseur&#8217;s first campaign at the helm in Maranello.<\/p>\n<p>The Italian outfit began 2023 in a disappointing fashion &#8211; in terms of both pace and reliability.<\/p>\n<p>A retirement for Charles Leclerc and an uninspiring P4 for Sainz in Bahrain cemented their failure over winter.<\/p>\n<p>The SF-23 was lacking in all areas, but was especially prone to severe tyre degradation and unpredictability in certain conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Faced with this unreliable baseline, Fred Vasseur and Enrico Cardile&#8217;s technical team were forced to make significant changes.<\/p>\n<p>An ambitious mid-season overhaul was the consequence of this. Generally speaking, these adjustments were successful.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"_0rv-EtPRuJIiwg20PTpbA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1638037257\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'_0rv-EtPRuJIiwg20PTpbA',sig:'TKT3N0x3moQymMyHuI_72tni7seq2oORITKEfcFJJ3I=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1638037257',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Ferrari was the second-best team after the 2023 summer break, often the biggest irritant to the relentless Verstappen-Red Bull combination.<\/p>\n<p>Although <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/02\/27\/f1-news-carlos-sainz-reveals-aim-to-negotiate-with-all-the-teams\/\" target=\"_self\">Carlos Sainz claimed a fantastic victory<\/a> in Singapore, Leclerc&#8217;s Vegas performance was arguably a better indication of the team&#8217;s progress.<\/p>\n<p>In somewhat shocking fashion, the Monegasque managed to look after his tyres and compete with Verstappen across a race distance.<\/p>\n<p>This development, whilst not accompanied by a race win, spoke to Ferrari&#8217;s progress in this department.<\/p>\n<p>Looking at the first iteration of the SF-24, these more desirable characteristics have been carried over and improved.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Leclerc sets key targets<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Speaking to the media, the 26-year-old outlined his baseline objectives for 2024:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>&#8220;To be challenging for many more wins, definitely that would be a step forward, and that would be a positive season.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I think we need to continue on the positive momentum of the second part of last year&#8230;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;This is exactly how we need to approach this season, to continue that way, with clear vision.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;And significant steps forward every time we put something inside the car, which was the case in the second half of last season.&#8221;<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a id=\"0BJXmo7qS-5rqg4GhtTORA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2038482109\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'0BJXmo7qS-5rqg4GhtTORA',sig:'C1NmdvAT7ZdmVzIaAPyVAXDKrQmMp-xQY35ryMBZHcY=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2038482109',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The term &#8216;baseline&#8217; is becoming increasingly common in F1 circles, and this is no different for Ferrari.<\/p>\n<p>Fred Vasseur&#8217;s team, unlike last season, has a platform they can build upon and trust for the long term.<\/p>\n<p>For Sainz and Leclerc, this should give them a realistic chance to <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2024\/02\/28\/f1-news-lando-norris-reveals-red-bulls-closest-rival-in-2024\/\" target=\"_self\">compete with Red Bull<\/a> throughout the 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>However, as is often the case in Formula 1, situations can evolve very quickly as rounds progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Charles Leclerc is cautiously optimistic about Ferrari&#8217;s SF-24 baseline, but he describes mid-season progression as essential. Traditionally, Ferrari&#8217;s pace relative to their rivals tends to decline during a season. Immediate rivals Mercedes and Red Bull traditionally make better improvements with their upgrade programmes. However, this trend began to change last year &#8211; which was Fred [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":18773,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2220,445,68,84,23,2250],"class_list":["post-18770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-2024-formula-1-season","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-f1","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-sf-24"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}