Ferrari is believed to be extremely happy with the way its 2023 challenger is shaping up and believes it can compete at the front right from the start of the season, according to McLaren chief Andrea Stella.
Stella spent over a decade at Ferrari as an engineer and knows the inner workings of the team very well.
Although he recently took up his position at McLaren, Stella has many contacts still at Ferrari and has been kept relatively updated about how the team is shaping up ahead of the new season.
Stella knows that McLaren might not be able to compete against the top 3 teams immediately, but it is one of his long-term goals after recently being appointed by McLaren.
Ferrari had a quick competitor even in 2022, but reliability issues derailed their early progress.
However, Stella has been told by reliable sources at Ferrari that the team is confident that it will have an even quicker car in the upcoming campaign.
“The teams to beat in the next F1 season are Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes, which are currently competing in a different category from ours,” Stella said.
“I expect a big reaction from Mercedes, even though I know that at Ferrari they are very happy with the new car and so they will certainly have a competitive start.”
Both Mercedes and Red Bull are likely to look into these words pretty closely as they would also expect themselves to be in the mix for the title.
Given Red Bull’s superiority last year, the team will start as favourites, but will know they have to be wary of a backlash from both Mercedes and Ferrari.
Ferrari also has a new team principal in Frederic Vasseur after Mattia Binotto was finally shown the exit door following a string of poor strategical calls.
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko criticised the change made by Ferrari and said it would end up costing them heavily.
“Definitely Mercedes – they are the more stable team. And they have [Lewis] Hamilton,” Marko said.
“Even if they may have gone downhill this year, they are still a very special team.
“In the meantime, [Hamilton’s] lap times have repeatedly shown that he is a top driver. [Mercedes] is just the much stronger package than Ferrari.”