Why Briatore is wrong about Raikkonen's final Ferrari chapter
OPINION - Flavio Briatore caused a minor stir with his comments that Ferrari should have ditched Kimi Raikkonen in favour of Charles Leclerc for 2018. But there was more to the situation that risked destabilising a young rookie driver
Charles Leclerc's journey to Ferrari stardom is different to, say, Max Verstappen's rapid rise to fame with Red Bull.
Red Bull is a team that that eschews the traditional and conservative approach when it comes to driver choices. Ferrari, famously, goes the other way, and yet for the start of last season it still hired the 20-year-old Leclerc to replace the 38-year-old, five-season incumbent, Kimi Raikkonen - the team's most recent world champion.
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Alex Kalinauckas is Autosport's Grand Prix Editor, covering every Formula 1 race since the start of 2020. After completing a master's degree in journalism at Goldsmiths College University of London in 2014, he worked for a range of motorsport and technology publications while covering national racing as an Autosport freelancer.
A lifelong motorsport fan - no one in his family can explain quite how or why such a development first occurred - Alex joined the Autosport staff in April 2017 as the magazine’s Assistant Editor covering Formula 2 and GP3, before being made Formula E correspondent and Autosport.com’s Plus Editor in March 2018. He lives in north-east London and is constantly frustrated by the Central Line.
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