“I said a year ago that I would try to make a decision before the end of the year. But I must admit that the last part of the season was chaos for everyone (…), it was very trying,” explained the Frenchman to the press at the Maranello HQ (Italy) at the end of the season. week. “We have had meetings and we have started the discussion, but we are behind the original plan. And it’s not a problem at all (…) we will make the decision soon,” he assured.
By the start of the season? “That could be the objective,” he replied, without giving further details. Ferrari finished the 2023 season in 3rd place in the Constructors’ World Championship, just three points behind Mercedes, a gulf separating them from the untouchable Red Bull.
In the drivers’ standings, Leclerc, 26, finished in 5th place in the championship, far from his performance last year, when the Monegasque finished vice-world champion behind the Dutchman Max Verstappen. Aged 29, Sainz, son of double world rally champion Carlos Sainz, arrived at Ferrari at the start of 2021 after two seasons with the British team McLaren.
After finishing 6th in the championship twice with McLaren then 5th in 2021 and 2022, the Spanish driver fell back in the hierarchy, finishing 7th, but scored a victory in September in Singapore, the only race that eluded Red Bull this year . Leclerc and Sainz, Vasseur recalled, “are under contract with us until the end of 2024, so we still have 13 months ahead of us.”
Earlier this year, Leclerc, at Ferrari since 2019, said in an interview with AFP that he wanted to be crowned world champion with the legendary Prancing Horse team. “The situation is not the one I would have wanted to be in today, but that doesn’t make me forget the fact that this is my dream team – and that my ultimate goal is to to be world champion with Ferrari,” he assured in September. The next F1 season begins on March 2 in Bahrain after three days of testing on the Gulf island (February 21-23). Until then, the Scuderia will lift the veil on its 2024 single-seater on February 13.