The Italian team endured their worst start to a Formula 1 season since 2009, when they went scoreless in the first three races of the season.

Its lack of performance compared with pacesetter Red Bull prompted Sainz to suggest at the Australian Grand Prix that it needed to change direction.

“At the moment, Red Bull is superior everywhere,” Sainz said. “It’s very good in qualifying, racing and straight-line speed.

“They’re great on the medium/low speed corners, they’re great on the tire management, they’re great on the curbs and bumps. It just goes to show that we obviously need to change some things.

“We need to go and check something very different from what we have now. I think the great performance at the beginning of last season allowed us to keep pushing this concept, this car project.

“But I think we realize now that Red Bull has a clear advantage everywhere and we need to start looking to the right and to the left.”

But while there have been rumors in recent weeks that Ferrari is preparing for radical changes, including a shift to the sidepod concept, team principal Fred Vasseur has refuted the move.

Instead, Vasseur said the team’s plan is to upgrade in three phases over the next few months, which he hopes will be enough to make an impact.

Asked by Autosport if the concept would change, Vasseur said: “No, I don’t think so.

“We’ll have a bunch of updates, but not for Baku because we have an aero kit for downforce levels, and for the sprint races it’s not the easiest, but for Miami, Imola, not Monaco and Barcelona. At each race we will update the car.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari SF-23

Photography: Ferrari

“We’re sticking to the plan. We’ve made some adjustments in terms of balance and behaviour, things are much better in Melbourne and we’ll continue to work in that direction.”

“If that’s what you’re saying, it’s not a B-segment. We’re not going to bring something completely different. We’re going to keep updating this, and we’re going to try to update it massively.”

Vasseur explained that the cost caps faced by teams and the constraints of wind tunnel time in F1 meant changing concepts at this stage of the season was a daunting task.

“To do a new project during the season, start from scratch, make a new car with a cost limit, and also consider the time limit of the wind tunnel, I don’t want to say it’s impossible, but it’s very difficult.

“Also, on our side, we have a feeling that I hope we are right, that we are going in the right direction, that there is still a lot of room for improvement with our car.

“That means as long as we can still develop the car to get the (downforce) points, and the aerodynamics to get better balance, get better stability and so on, I think it makes sense to push in that direction.”

Ferrari’s preferred response to a difficult start to 2023 is to speed up the rollout of planned upgrades, rather than doing something different with its cars and starting from scratch.

Vasseur added: “Before the season you always have a development plan and then you have to react to the situation, the competitiveness of the car, the behavior of the car. We acted very quickly.”

“We’ve brought some good updates in Melbourne and we’ll continue. What we can do is try to speed up the process and maybe take some different directions in terms of balance and things like that.

“But we can’t drastically change plans after three games and say, ‘Okay, we’ve got to go in another direction.'”

Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari team principal and general manager

Photography: Ferrari

But while major concept changes have been ruled out this season, Vasseur is open to the fact that the team may need to take a different path with the 2024 car if the situation does not improve.

“The question (really) is about the cost cap: do you want to carry over,” he said. “Which parts do you want to carry over from one season to the next – like the gearbox or the big parts of the monocoque? That’s a question that we have to work through the cost cap.

“With the development strategy, I think we have a good update. If we want to keep improving on this, we’ll see later in the season, do we have room for improvement, or do we have to change a lot more? direction. We will see in a long time.

Additional reporting by Alex Kalinauckas