Charles Leclerc is experiencing a quieter winter at Ferrari because Lewis Hamilton is attracting all the attention – but the Monegasque driver is able to see the positive side of things
Lewis Hamilton is still on cloud nine after his move to Ferrari, and his new team-mate Charles Leclerc fully understands – after six years with the Scuderia, Leclerc knows better than anyone what it’s like to be a Ferrari driver.
“It’s really nice to see,” he says, referring to Hamilton’s enthusiasm for the new task. “But of course the situation is different now, Lewis is joining the team in a completely different way,” Leclerc compares Hamilton’s arrival with his own in Maranello in 2019: ‘When I came, I had only been in Formula 1 for a year.’ In 2018, the Monegasque made his debut in the premier class with Sauber.
“So everything in Formula 1 was still quite new to me,” says Leclerc. ‘Of course, I first had to learn how a team like Ferrari works in Formula 1, even though I already knew the factory and everything because I was part of the Ferrari Academy before,’ the now 27-year-old recalls his own beginnings in red.
Leclerc: Lewis comes “as a legend of the sport”
With regard to his prominent teammate, he adds: “For Lewis, an Italian team is also new, of course. But he has already achieved so much and he is already arriving here as a legend of the sport.” Leclerc can also benefit from Hamilton’s experience and the working methods he has learned from other successful teams: “In that sense, we have already learned a lot,” he says.
But he is also happy for the Briton on a personal level: “It was really exciting to see how happy and excited he was about the whole thing. It meant that the pre-season preparation was a bit more in the shade for me, but I enjoyed it,“ Leclerc has no problem with his new role alongside the most successful Formula 1 driver of all time, who, accordingly, attracts the focus of the tifosi.
”I have been concentrating on myself. I’m going full throttle to be ready for the first race,” Leclerc can also see the advantages of the newfound calm in the slipstream of the Hamilton hype: ‘I’m also really looking forward to this year and hope we can start it a bit more positively than last year.’
One direction at Ferrari: ‘That’s good for a change’
In terms of working with Hamilton, the Monegasque driver does not see any difficulties for the Scuderia after the first few weeks working with his new teammate. Quite the opposite: “Our driving styles are very similar, we both like to push relatively hard, especially at the corner entry. We are very similar in that respect.”
Of course, this helps the team with their setup work: “That’s positive, because I think we’ll need the same things from the car. And as a team, that’s always a good thing, because then we’re both definitely pushing in the same direction because we need the same things. So that’s good,” says Lelcerc.
Otherwise, the collaboration with the Brit has been “going really well”, reveals the eight-time Grand Prix winner: “We’ve spent quite a bit of time together since the beginning of the year: less on the track than in the photo studio taking pictures, which isn’t the part we enjoy the most – but it’s part of the job,” Leclerc smiles. ‘But now I’m looking forward to racing with him and hopefully bringing Ferrari back to the top.’
