(Motorsport) Formula 1’s most successful team in history Scuderia Ferrari unveiled their 2023 challenger called SF-23 from their Maranello base. The team finished second last season despite a bright start to their 2022 campaign, as they suffered from a variety of reliability and strategy issues. Speaking at the launch, last year’s runner-up Charles Leclerc said “Our Valentine is our new car” as both drivers went on to hit the nearby Fiorano circuit for the car’s first laps. Scuderia Ferrari have not won a championship since 2007 and failing to win in 2023 will make it their longest ever drought in the team’s history.

Scuderia Ferrari will hope to forget last season’s woes as they try to catch up to Red Bull while fending off competition from Mercedes, who had an uncharacteristically poor season in 2022. There is optimism under new team principal Fred Vasseur that there won’t be the high-profile strategy errors that were seen last season. The Italian manufacturer’s SF-23 is the eighth car that has been launched so far with Mercedes launching their car on Wednesday, 15th February followed by Alpine on Thursday, 16th February. Pre-season testing will begin on February 23-25 in Bahrain before the first Grand Prix of the season in the same country on March 5.

Offering his pre-season thoughts during Ferrari’s presentation, Vasseur said: “It’s always emotional for a team to do the launch. My contribution is very small on this one, but I can perfectly feel the work done on the car. Now it will be a new journey for the project, because the car will move to the race team. It’s a great feeling; when you are back on track, it’s like when you are back at school. I can feel that everybody is very proud of the job done and this feeling is very important for the motivation of everybody and for the season.

“It will be a quite long season, but the motivation is there and it’s crucial in terms of performance. It’s intense, as you can imagine! You can feel the responsibility for the team; it’s a great honour. But at the end of the day, I think the most important thing is to be successful – we will have to deliver.”

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