Ralf Schumacher was highly critical of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, after another dismal showing for the Scuderia at the 2023 Miami Grand Prix.
Ferrari are struggling in 2023, and after some signs of hope in 2022 when they started the season with all guns blazing, the team fell short of the early season expectations with errors, both team and drivers, creeping in while reliability also eluded them.
Over the winter, Mattia Binotto was sent packing and Frederic Vasseur was installed as team boss, but the team’s SF-23 is worse than its predecessor in terms of race pace and chronic high tyre degradation, and in Miami added another unwanted trait; unpredictability, according to Charles Leclerc.
But former Formula 1 driver Ralf Schumacher doesn’t feel Ferrari is to blame this time, and went after its drivers in the aftermath of the Miami Grand Prix, where Leclerc binned his car in qualifying and was anonymous during the race.
Carlos Sainz, on the other hand, exceeded the speed limit in the pitlane earning a five-second time penalty, not to mention his poor form as he continues to struggle with the SF-23, as he was 0.8s off Leclerc’s pace in Azerbaijan.
Leclerc lacks maturity, Sainz lacks pace
Commenting in Miami in his Sky Germany column; Schumacher wrote: “Ferrari once again fell short of expectations. Ferrari has given me a very decent impression since Fred Vasseur took office. A lot has happened there.
“I see the biggest problem with the drivers,” he added. “For me, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz are not consistent enough. Leclerc himself has said that, against the advice of his engineers, he mistuned the car.
“With his mistakes, he shows that he either doesn’t have the maturity or maybe at the end of the day he’s not consistently good to drive a world championship for Ferrari. At the moment this is not the case,” the German insisted.
As for the other Ferrari driver; Schumacher said: “Sainz was eight tenths away from Leclerc on a weekend [Baku], in Miami he was at his level, braked and drove into the pit lane too quickly.
“To be honest, the Ferrari team is currently doing a better job than both drivers,” Ralf, the brother of the great Michael Schumacher, concluded.