Hamilton’s getting the headlines – but is this Leclerc’s year?

Charles Leclerc’s presence amidst Lewis Hamilton’s triumphant arrival at Maranello barely merited a footnote. As the world strained for any fleeting glimpse of the new man in red, Leclerc lurked in the shadows. He, too, drove 2023 car, logging 14 laps at Fiorano, sharing a moment with the cheering tifosi trackside. Yet despite the focus on Hamilton, undoubtedly one of the most significant driver signings in F1 history, there’s every chance of Leclerc stealing his thunder once the racing begins.

Hamilton’s arrival is a confounding factor in Leclerc’s pre-ordained ascent to the top of F1, but it shouldn’t derail Leclerc. The 27-year-old heads into his seventh season with Ferrari off the back of his best campaign yet, one in which he top-scored after the August break. Were it not for Ferrari’s ill-fated June floor upgrade, which triggered porpoising and a time-consuming design rethink, Leclerc could have been a genuine title contender. He and Ferrari stand on the brink of ending a world championship drought that stretching back to its last constructor’s title in 2008. His moment has come.

Nobody disputes Leclerc is one of the quickest in F1 over a single lap; there’s a strong argument he’s fastest of all. He’s a rarity in modern F1 who can deliver visibly on-the-edge qualifying laps, exemplified by his Singapore pole in 2019 when he hung the rear end of the Ferrari out several times, without losing time through his lairiness. He also has phenomenal traction-sensitivity, with a remarkable ability to know just how much to lean on overheating rear tires at the end of the lap. That’s just one example of his peerless feel, allowing him to conduct his physics-defying dance on the tightrope of grip.

He’s a proactive driver, one who induces rotation at corner entry by overlapping throttle and brake. That’s most effective in a car with oversteer, which he uses his incredibly control to manage throughout the rest of the corner. He also chimes with the driving style demanded of the current ground effect cars, adapting quickly when they were first introduced in 2022 and modifying his braking approach during testing. His resulting astonishing turn of speed has been there right back to his karting days, ticking every box other than the one marked ‘world champion’.

The caricature of Leclerc is that he’s fast but error-prone and unreliable in races, with his ratio of 26 to just eight wins cited as supporting evidence, along with costly mistakes he’s made in the past. The view he couldn’t be trusted on race day was always exaggerated, but he did make too many mistakes – perhaps exemplified by crashing out while leading in the French Grand Prix at Paul Ricard, trying to squeeze every last iota of time out of the car on ageing tires in the knowledge he would drop behind Max Verstappen when he pitted. He’s also occasionally asked too much of the car on qualifying laps, which is the downside of that ability to tiptoe on the limit. Every now and again, he slides off the narrow peak – usually followed by self-beration over the radio.

Last year underlined how far he’s come. The worst mistake in races was poor ‘middle-lane’ car positioning at the start of the Austrian Grand Prix that led to front wing damage – and that was only a minor error of judgement.

“Looking back at this year, there hasn’t really been any missed opportunities,” said Leclerc of his 2024 season late last year. “In other years, when I looked back there were always one or two races where I wanted to do things that were not possible and it bit me. That would mean I’d get zero points when I could have got 10 or eight points. Even if that’s not much, at the end when you add these up, it makes a difference. This year, I don’t think I’ve left any opportunities behind. That is why I’m satisfied with the season.”

Fulfilling the lifelong dream of winning on his home streets in Monaco was the obvious high point. His progress in the iconic event showcasing his evolution as he put behind him the pain of a Q3 crash in 2021 that caused undetected damage preventing him starting from pole, then his failure to command strategic decisions as effectively as his team-mate after leading the wet race early on a year later. Arguably, his ostensibly-straightforward win in the United States Grand Prix at Austin was more impressive given the remarkable pace he showed while managing the tricky Pirelli tires. His other 2024 win was also a tire masterclass, one-stopping at Monza.

Leclerc’s hadn’t historically been in the top class of F1 tire managers, although there are overlooked races that stood out on this score earlier in his career. One example is the 2020 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone, where he pulled off a remarkable one-stopper with long final stint to net a fourth place that was far better than the uncompetitive Ferrari, performance neutered by enforced power unit operation changes ahead of the season, deserved. However, such showings were sporadic and he’s evolved his game to the point of considering tire management turning from a weakness into a strength. And that goes hand-in-hand with Ferrari’s own strategic gains.

“There were a few weaknesses,” said Leclerc when I asked him about this in Brazil last year. “First, when I arrived in the team, tire management on my side was always a weakness and now it actually became one of my strengths. Strategy-wise, we are in a much better place today. Ravin [Jain, head of strategy] and his team are doing an exceptional job and we have done a big step forward.”

Leclerc has the perfect benchmark for where he stands on tire management this year. Hamilton is a past master at this, something casual observers might not recognize given how often he gripes about the prognosis of Pirellis in a stint over the radio. Perhaps along with Verstappen, he’s the market-leader in F1. This will be a test for Leclerc, but in recent years even on weekends where Sainz could beat him in qualifying, often Leclerc had the race-pace advantage.

Leclerc’s contribution to the team the cockpit has also improved. While he hasn’t reached the level of erstwhile team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr, Leclerc has improved from being one of the weaker communicators without a firm grasp on goings-on around him to a much more capable one. The resulting assertiveness, which he has consciously worked on, will stand him in good stead, although he must balance up the desire to make the right call with ensuring he only does so when he has the facts and judgement to do so.

His wheel-to-wheel qualities also should not be underestimated. Bahrain 2022, when he out-thought Verstappen in a fight to the flag to win, stands out as an example of what he’s capable of when it comes to strategy in a close fight. He’s shown he can weigh up risk and reward effectively, knowing when to tough it out and when to give room before retaking the advantage later.

Leclerc’s already won the hearts of the tifosi, but he’ll achieve Maranello immortality if he can win a championship with Ferrari. Image by Ferrari

“I always enjoy wheel-to-wheel [racing],” he said. “It’s always a very exciting moment of the weekend where you’ve got to adapt to different drivers, you get to know drivers and you adapt your driving style a bit as well. When lots is at stake, you can take more risk , that’s what I enjoy the most.”

Leclerc’s evolving game has not yet been tested in the intensity of a world championship fight, which is something he will hope to be in this year. But there are also weaknesses that he must still chip away at. For example, in an understeering car he hasn’t always managed to extract the same performance as Sainz could over the previous three years. What’s more, by his own admission he struggles in low-grip conditions, for example at Monza or Mexico City.

“It’s not one of my strengths, qualifying on very low-grip tracks,” said Leclerc. “I tend to push quite a lot in qualifying and in Monza and Mexico I always struggle quite a lot. I’ve got to think a lot more in order to finish a lap and trying to contain a bit more my will to push extremely hard in qualifying, because it just doesn’t work out on those tracks. You slide a lot because there is very low grip. You’ve just got to be a little bit less on the limit on those tracks, and I struggle a bit more to do that.”

These are the specific circumstances where Leclerc still needs to chip away at his game to emerge as the best possible version of himself. He’s held in high esteem by his rivals, old karting rival Max Verstappen and Hamilton included, but has never fully been part of the championship-fight narrative.

It’s a truism to call any driver’s season a defining one, but the stars appear to have aligned for Leclerc in 2025. He should have a shot at the title, but the arrival of Hamilton will cast an extra spotlight on him. It could well be to his advantage, allowing him to learn a thing or two from the seven-times world champions to smooth out the remaining rough edges in his game while showing the world he can beat a seven-times world championship.

Hamilton could complicate matters – even at 40, he’s far from a spent force in F1 despite his struggles of late with Mercedes – but Leclerc knows this is his moment. As far as he is concerned, Ferrari is his team and provided the car is quick enough, he will expect to achieve his destiny and become world champion.

And to do that, there was always the chance he’d have to beat Hamilton one way or another.