Why Ferrari is sure its long-term Leclerc investment will be vindicated

“Leclerc is a driver who would have been very much to my father’s liking, an intelligent fellow, gifted with incredible talent in every respect, highly concentrated. 
If we give him the right car, he
will give us a lot of pleasure.”

Piero Ferrari has long been an understated presence at the heart of the company founded by his father Enzo. Although powerful behind the scenes, Ferrari’s vice-chairman has preferred to keep a low profile in public in the 33 years since his father’s death.

So when Ferrari makes a statement in public, it carries real weight. Recently, he chose the occasion of an award ceremony held in his honour to lavish praise on Charles Leclerc.

The 24-year old, Ferrari said, “is a driver who would have been very much to my father’s liking, an intelligent fellow, gifted with incredible talent in every respect, highly concentrated. If we give him the right car, he will give us a lot of pleasure”.

From a team founded by and operated in the image of motorsport’s most celebrated figure, that is quite a statement. It places Ferrari’s current lead driver in the lineage of the legends of the team’s past, drivers who achieved great things whether or not the cars were at the very highest level – Tazio Nuvolari, Niki Lauda, Michael Schumacher, Fernando Alonso. And most 
of all, given the history behind Ferrari’s remarks, Gilles Villeneuve.

Villeneuve carved an indelible place in F1 history for his daring and remarkable feats at the wheel of a Ferrari from 1978 until his death in
 1982, at a time when the team was rarely absolutely competitive. He was the greatest driver of his day, one of the fastest of all time, and he had a special place in Enzo Ferrari’s heart.

Leclerc claimed back-to-back pole positions on the streets of Monaco and Baku this season, performances that have earned comparisons with past Ferrari greats

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“The one that Enzo Ferrari liked the most was Gilles Villeneuve,” says Ferrari’s team principal, Mattia Binotto, explaining Piero Ferrari’s remarks. “In his way of driving, he was always very spontaneous and fresh.

“He gave everything he had to deliver the most, and was crazy enough and capable of doing outstanding qualifying laps. And so he is one of 
these drivers that create the passion in the tifosi. Because he was really doing his best always.”

Leclerc, Binotto agrees, is made in the same vein.

“If I look at the tifosi today, certainly Charles is reflecting that type of spirit. And no doubt that will become even more true when he will start winning championships.”

"I think he is the best qualifier on the grid. He is one of the greatest if not the greatest talent in F1 now, and I am actually getting to learn now why he is performing at such a high level" Carlos Sainz Jr

Some may baulk at the idea of comparing a driver who has only two wins to his name with those whose feats are part of the fabric of motorsport history, but Leclerc has already done enough to demonstrate he has 
that sort of potential.

His brief, four-year career has been punctuated by spectacular performances. Whether it’s taking a Sauber to unfamiliar places in his debut year in 2018; demolishing Sebastian Vettel’s position as team leader in his first season at Ferrari; or a series of reality-bending qualifying laps, such as the wild and spectacular one that took pole at Singapore in 2019, or the smooth and clinical one that put him fourth on the grid at Sakhir in 2020, a place the car had no right to be.

Leclerc has even raced like Villeneuve, in the remarkable duel with 
Max Verstappen at Silverstone in 2019, which carried echoes of the famous battle between Gilles and Rene Arnoux at Dijon in 1979, or Leclerc’s race-long defence against Lewis Hamilton on his way to victory at Monza in 2019.

Battle with Verstappen at Silverstone in 2019 evoked memories of Villeneuve vs Arnoux 40 years before

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

In these moments, and in the consistency of his performances, Leclerc is already justifying Ferrari’s decision at the end of 2019 to sign him to a five-year contract. That deal was a major statement – it was F1’s biggest team investing its hopes in Leclerc after he had done just two seasons in F1,
as the man to carry its hopes into the medium-term future.

Only the very best drivers earn themselves this sort of commitment from Ferrari – in the last 30 years, only Schumacher and Alonso have had contracts that rival the length of Leclerc’s.

“That is what is distinguishing talented drivers from good drivers,” Binotto says. “If you are an outstanding, talented driver, you are capable of extracting the most from the car and doing a fantastic lap. And that was the case of Michael and Fernando.

“If there is anything different with Charles it is that those ones were world champions who had already proved in F1 to be talented, which Ferrari engaged. With Charles it has been a different story, because Charles has been with us since the very start and it has been great from Ferrari to find that talent. Charles has got it, no doubt.”

That Leclerc is one of those rare and special talents has been clear pretty much from the moment he stepped into a Formula 1 car.

Placed at Sauber for his debut after several years with the Ferrari Driver Academy, Leclerc had a slightly wobbly first three races in 2018. But thereafter he destroyed team-mate Marcus Ericsson, out-qualifying the Swede by an average of 0.6 seconds over the season 17 times to three and scoring more than four times as many points.

That was more than enough to convince Ferrari that it should go ahead with its plan to replace Kimi Raikkonen and parachute Leclerc straight into the second seat alongside Vettel in 2019. The idea was to benchmark the German, whose performances in his title campaigns against Lewis Hamilton in 2017 and 2018 had been error-prone and erratic. That it was even considered as a plan speaks volumes for the level of talent Ferrari already believed Leclerc possessed.

Leclerc soon put Vettel in the shade when he arrived at Ferrari in 2019, following up his Bahrain standout drive with two wins later that year

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

In his first season at Ferrari, alongside a four-time world champion
 who is statistically the third most successful driver of all time, Leclerc emerged on top on every single metric: six poles to Vettel’s one, ahead in qualifying 12 times to nine at an average of 0.111s, two wins to one (which would have been three-nil had not Ferrari inadvertently undercut Vettel ahead of Leclerc in Singapore when it didn’t mean to) and ahead
 by 24 points in the championship.

Their second season, albeit one in which Vettel’s heart was perhaps not in it after being told he was surplus to requirements at Ferrari, was a whitewash. And although Carlos Sainz Jr has been extremely impressive in his debut season at Maranello, there is no doubt who has been the leading driver: Leclerc was ahead 11-4 in qualifying at the time of writing at 0.164s, and on points despite some bad luck which limited his scoring.

"He is really strong in managing the pressure. He is capable of winning because he has that winning mentality that is required when you are ahead, managing the pressure, managing the situation and the way that he is somehow even controlling the race sometimes in overtaking or defence" Mattia Binotto

Sainz is well aware of the scale of the challenge he faces as Leclerc’s team-mate.

“I think he is the best qualifier on the grid,” Sainz has said.
“He is one of the greatest if not the greatest talent in F1 now, and I am actually getting to learn now why he is performing at such a high level.

“It is not only speed. He also has a very good work ethic. He is very good at team building. He has a lot of strengths that make him such a strong driver, and I am loving the challenge, to be honest, because I know there is no one better than him probably on a single lap with a Ferrari Formula 1 car.”

Leclerc has shown fortitude out of the car, too. Before he had even arrived in F1, he had faced the death of his father Hervé and his godfather Jules Bianchi. Rather than give him pause, Leclerc says these losses simply strengthened his desire to succeed. Bianchi suffered horrific injuries in his crash at Suzuka in 2014. Leclerc’s response was to race on in his honour.

Perhaps it should therefore be no surprise, then, that when Ferrari engineer Jock Clear, who works closely with Leclerc, is asked about the driver’s qualities, speed is not the first thing he mentions.

“If you say ‘These are the drivers I’ve worked with, put your finger on the one element that really shines through,’” Clear says, “[it’s] mental strength certainly with Charles. [He’s] quite astoundingly strong mentally.

Engineer Clear has been impressed with Leclerc's mental strength

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“Because he is who he is and he has done what he’s done in the last two or three years, it’s easy to forget that coming in 
as an official Ferrari driver at that age [21] has got to be intimidating. My word, it’s got to be intimidating stuff.

“There’s times when he hasn’t been the quickest driver, there’s times when he’s struggled, he’s had races when he’s chewed through his tyres twice as quickly as his team-mate. So it’s not just that he’s quick.

“Yes, he’s super-quick and we’ve seen how good a qualifier he is. I think qualifying is a good example of mental strength because actually qualifying is an occasion where you’ve got to perform. It’s a bit like taking the penalty at the end of the Euros. That is pressure. You’ve got to deliver now. There’s no ‘that wasn’t great but the next one will be all right.’

“But [it’s in] all sorts of behind-the-scenes conversations and stresses that he’s been under that I’m really, really impressed at how little they impact him come Sunday afternoon.”

Binotto also confirms there was a lot more to Ferrari’s decision to back Leclerc as its man than just pure speed.

“The reason was first that we know him since the start of his career; he is a very talented driver,” he says. “That is the top priority. He is very fast. And not only on a single lap, but when he is in the race situation; the way he is capable of defending and attacking without losing pace is something which is outstanding. I have always in mind Monza 2019. The way he defended the position (against Hamilton) was outstanding, or Silverstone with Max.

“He is really strong in managing the pressure. He is capable of winning because he has that winning mentality that is required when you are ahead, managing the pressure, managing the situation and the way that he is somehow even controlling the race sometimes in overtaking or defence.
 He has got a fantastic talent.

“Second, he is a great guy – fresh, a lot of empathy with the team, myself with him, and that is something that makes things easier. And the way I can see him today managing tyres in the race, incredibly different and better compared with the past when he started. Which means do not wear out the tyres excessively, understand where and when you can push, where you need to save. In that respect, he really has developed his sensitivity to the car and the tyres in an outstanding way.”

Binotto cites Lerclerc's sensitivity with the tyres as a key strength

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

Despite the high regard in which Ferrari holds Leclerc, though, it is more than happy to admit that he is not yet the finished article.

Leclerc’s style, the way he always pushes right to the edge, is what helps produce those ‘how-did-he-do-that?’ moments in qualifying which have become so commonplace. Every now and again it leads to a mistake, 
but he is never one to make excuses – quite the contrary, he has shown a very high degree of self-criticism, often berating himself in front of the television cameras afterwards.

“It is something which is well appreciated,” Binotto says. “If you have the humility to do such, it means you have a big self-confidence and strength.

"His capability of addressing issues, in terms of feedback, in terms of support to the engineering team, has been quite a lot better than the past but there is still room for improvement" Mattia Binotto

“But sometimes I am discussing that with him because I believe it
 is not always right to do it, certainly to do it live, because it is not always 
his own responsibility. It is a team responsibility, of which he is part.
 So I always told him: ‘You should never say, “That’s my fault.” You
 should say: “That’s our fault, the team.”’”

Binotto sees other areas out of the car that Leclerc can work on, too.

“In the last seasons, he developed himself a lot in terms of driving an F1 car,” Binotto says. “There is as well a lot that can be done back at Maranello, meeting with the team and engineers and supporting the team in development. That is a matter of experience, of putting in effort but doing the exercise, re-doing the exercise and trying each time to do it better.

“His capability of addressing issues, in terms of feedback, in terms of support to the engineering team, has been quite a lot better than the past but there is still room for improvement. In order to give good feedback, you need a good feeling and sensitivity to the car behaviours, which he has got. As he is very talented, he has a fantastic feeling for the car.

For all Leclerc's progress, Ferrari believes he's not yet the finished article

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“And then it is a matter of translating the feeling you’ve got into the right engineering feedback. That is a matter of vocabulary, of finding the right words, of interacting, of sitting there, understand, compare. It is a matter of exercise. He is improving a lot in the way he is giving feedback.”

If and when Ferrari produces a car capable of challenging for the title, it is Leclerc who will be leading the campaign. The team may see a few rough edges which need smoothing off, but already it believes he is more than capable of going toe-to-toe with the likes of Hamilton and Verstappen
 when the opportunity arises.

Clear, who has also worked with Hamilton, Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button and Jacques Villeneuve in a long career, says: “My initial reaction is ‘God, yes, he is absolutely ready.’ You have to balance that with [the fact] there is no substitute for actually being in that position. That is a different level of pressure. But all I can say is he’s managed and coped with every other level of pressure so far. And, yeah, he’s made mistakes, but all drivers are going to make mistakes.

“We know very well that Max has made lots of mistakes in his earlier career, but nobody’s telling me that Max isn’t ready to win a championship. So far, Charles has met every challenge and been up for it and been strong enough to move forward from those mistakes.

“If you’re put in a position where you’re going to be challenging for a championship, it’s going to be against Max, it’s going to be against Lewis. It’s going to be tough. You are going to slip up, you are going to make a mistake, you are going to drop some points. But will he cope with that? 
Yes, he absolutely will cope with that.

“He’s not going to crumble when he drops it in qualifying and has to start from P13 or whatever. He’ll just swallow it and deal with it and the next race he’ll come back and put it on pole.”

And Binotto has no doubt that Leclerc can be a driver of the very 
highest level for Ferrari.

“We are fully convinced, and that’s why we invested with him in the future, signing a contract which is a long-term contract, and it is the longest we have ever had in our history. We really invested long-term because we are fully convinced he will be the man and the driver who can bring us there and become the next world champion.”

Andrew Benson is BBC Sport's chief F1 writer 

Binotto is convinced that Leclerc is the right man for Ferrari's medium and long-term future

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images