New Ferrari “feels good”, says Leclerc, as team avoids wasting filming day slot

Just moments after Ferrari’s new F1 challenger was revealed at Maranello, Leclerc took to the circuit to complete two laps.

Running live on camera, Leclerc had little trouble getting up to speed as he briefly explored the potential of the new car, and he sounded upbeat afterwards.

“It feels good,” said Leclerc. “I mean the first kilometres with this new project after doing so many kilometres on the simulator, it feels special. So everything went smoothly.

“Obviously with two laps it’s difficult to go into details but I already gave my feedback once I was in the car there to the engineers to get the first feeling. The car was running well, smooth, so yeah, everything went really well.”

Leclerc won the right to run first in the SF-23 after team boss Fred Vasseur held a coin toss between the Monegasque driver and teammate Carlos Sainz.

The deal was that whoever got to drive the car first would get two laps, while the second driver would get three tours in total.

This strict limit on running was to ensure that Ferrari fully complied with F1’s testing restrictions.

Rather than electing to use up one of the two valuable 100km filming days that the team has at its disposal for the launch, Ferrari was instead able to run the car under what is classified as the ‘demonstration events’ rules.

This meant that, as long as the team did not exceed 15 kilometres of running in its current car, then its filming day allocation would remain intact.

With Fiorano’s lap being 2.997 kilometres long, the five laps between both drivers would ensure Ferrari could complete the first run without going over the demonstration event limit.

Vasseur was on hand for his first Ferrari team launch, as he was clear that he would only be satisfied this year with success.

Asked about his first weeks in charge at the squad, he said: “So far, it’s intense, as you can imagine. You can feel the responsibility for the team, [but] it’s a great honour.

“At the end of the day, I think the most important is to be successful. We will have to deliver, and I don’t want to be very happy because I’m at Ferrari. The most important is to win and the challenge is in front of us.”