Charles Leclerc, who finished second to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen last year, has set his sights on trying to win Ferrari’s first Formula 1 drivers’ title for 16 years this season.
Leclerc said he believed Ferrari had done a “great job” on their new car, which was unveiled on Tuesday.
Leclerc drove the car for the first time at the Fiorano test track during the launch with team-mate Carlos Sainz also driving the car later on Tuesday.
The last Ferrari driver to win the World Championship was Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, and the team’s history since then has been one of near misses – they came closest with Fernando Alonso in 2010 and 2012 – and disappointment.
Their season in 2022 was a major step forward compared with their lack of competitiveness in the two previous years.
But although Leclerc established a comfortable championship lead after the first three races, the team quickly fell away, their year torpedoed by strategy errors and reliability problems.
The repeated mistakes on race management led to former team principal Mattia Binotto leaving his post and he has been replaced by Frederic Vasseur, formerly of Alfa Romeo-Sauber.