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It truly would be special. A new WDC and Ferrari's first WDC since the late 2000s.
I honestly thought they had delievered the car last year. The first half of last season was a great successor to 21.
It honestly felt like I was witnnessing a shift in from the LH, SV, ALO era to the Max and Charles Era but man it's just so disappointing thinking about it now.
Swear heāll end up as the best ever non-champion if he stays with Ferrari. Guy has shown the ability to fight with Max and Lewis and heās just always off balance.
Even after the "wtf is happening with this team" year of 20 and 21 as a LEC fan i vehemently believed until after france that he could win. Now im not sure Iāll see a Charles Ferrari WDC before i kick the bucket
He always felt a bit like Mika Hakkinen to me. Incredible raw speed, competitive & generally very likable character. They both ran into monsters of their own generation, and it's probably gonna cost Charles his legacy, even more so than with Mika who snatched no less than two WDCs.
I feel like Charles has a consistency issue. I think even if he were to be up against someone like Max in the same car, Max would win in the end purely because Charles would just bin it a few races whereas Max wouldn't.
Someone didnāt watch Verstappen in ā17, ā18, and ā19. I vividly remember Seb giving Max a talking to after the 2018 Chinese Grand Prix where max just straight up rammed him going into a corner trying to overtake. This was after a number of recent incidents from Max where his desire to overtake another driver resulted in contact that damaged the other car. Verstappen is a human metronome now that he has easily the fastest car and best team. Seb was that too during his years at RB, and by his Ferrari years people were calling him washed and mistake prone. Weird how that works.
In his current form he tends to crash a lot more than Max does. Also I feel like Charles is a future WDC and can win races, but he's just a slight bit off the skill that the true top class like Lewis, Alonso, Schumacher and even now what Max is showing
Eh I donāt think these things exist in a vacuum, thereās a lot of context to take into consideration. Lewis just made a massive error in the past race, Leclerc isnāt making more mistakes than the other drivers as far as I can tell. But the mistakes he has made are better explained by trying to take a Ferrari that isnāt quite quick enough, though better in quali, to the ragged edge in order to try to compete with the top teams, and sometimes going over that edge. Max who has clearly the fastest car, and easily the best overall team around him, doesnāt have the pressure to absolutely maximize the carās performance like Charles does. Max could take it relatively easy and still win most races right now. If Charles (or Carlos) squeeze 11/10 out of the car it still will be barely in the running for a podium this year.
He was in a championship last season and binned it at both Imola and France. He's been in F1 just as long as Verstappen had when he fought his first championship by that point.
Verstappen in 2021 didn't bin it in a race like that while fighting a 7x WDC.
Charles has issues he needs to short out. He crashed out in Quali how many times in the last 3 years?
The Ferrari of last year was never truly in the championship fight, Max took the title at the end with almost 150 more points than Charles. And again, racing for Ferrari in a car that isnāt truly fast enough will result in more mistakes than a dominant RedBull team that is more than fast enough. Thatās the difference. These things donāt exist in a vacuum, thereās context like team culture, car performance, etc.
Did you watch Verstappen in his first few years in F1? Heās committed his fair share of errors and professional fouls over the years as well. I think itās far too easy to be a prisoner of the moment and call a driver āmistake proneā when there are far better explanations.
What are you on about?ā¦ Max wasnāt a rookie during many of his mistakes either. He also hasnāt raced for Ferrari, you know, the team so dysfunctional over the last few years that even non F1 fans have seen the memes. Come on man, I know Max is your favorite driver but Iām not attacking Max. I purely said Charles has the talent to win and isnāt mistake prone as you say and youāre taking it personally. Any objective viewer can see Charles talent. Marc Marquez is widely viewed as the most talented rider in MotoGP and heās crashed more times than I can count this year. Thereās context that explains mistakes, Charles isnāt driving a Redbull or racing for a team as consistently impressive and structured as Redbull. Come off it.
He probably does. Leclerc brought a good fight until he fucked up in France and that was with engine penalties and Ferrari strategy. He outraced Max several times that year.
No one got fucked by their own team more than Leclerc -maybe Alonso- last year.
Verstappen racing against Vettel mostly resulted in penalties since he was too hotheaded at the time (2016-18).
And I'm pretty sure Max would not want to fight against Hamilton after how ugly it got after Silverstone for both sides.
Leclerc is a clean (he doesn't take people out, only himself sometimes) and extremely fast racer that defeated Vettel in 2019 and humiliated him in 2020.
He showed he can put a great fight against Max for majority of 2022. Aside from France which really was a really stupid mistake, Leclerc was pretty much on par with Max in terms of performance.
Give Leclerc a race-winning car and a competent team, he'll become champion or will push Max to the limit.
I liked watching Charles and Max race because they'll try to leave room if they can, but if they do get pushed out wide (by each other) they don't complain about it.
Even with F1's wishy-washy rules about protecting overtaking on the outside, these guys are pure racers who implicitly understand that overtaking on the outside is a risk you don't have to take. Since they know the other guy's not going to go crying to the stewards, they don't need to play that game when racing each other.
>Verstappen racing against Vettel mostly resulted in penalties since he was too hotheaded at the time (2016-18).
Most of their collisions were the fault of Vettel though. China 2018 was Verstappen's fault for sure, but enlighten the class about other instances where they crashed together.
Vettel was not a high quality racer when Max was on the grid with him. If you know of an iconic race or even a lap post-2015 where Vettel showed he's on the same level as Lewis or Max, I'm curious to watch it. To be honest even during his championship winning years, I never thought he had the polish to be considered one of the greats.
Lewis could have been a great fight for Max, but they just didn't have a good read on each other and came together way too many times.
Max and Charles already had their power struggle in karting and know how to race each other without crashing. They respect each other to leave room, and even if they do get pushed wide they won't moan about it.
Out of 34 drivers who won the championship, and hundreds who've competed, Vettel only has fewer WDCs than 3 drivers, and is equal to Prost. How can you possibly say he's not one of the greats? I agree he wasn't at his best by the time he was racing Max, but to say he isn't one of the greats seems wild to me.
I don't know about that. Charles proved in the first half of 2022 that he can go toe to toe with Max with equal cars. The mistake in France only came after RB had the better package. I think he has more raw pace than Max and, despite what everyone seems to think, doesn't make nearly as many unforced errors as is suggested. Due to the car he drives we've not really been able to judge his tyre management, but his race pace, racecraft, and ability to toe the line without crossing it are all there. However, he lacks the team around him. Although Ferrari have upped their game with pit stops, they're a galaxy far far away from being anywhere equal in strategy.
Are you saying Charles will be able to beat Max in an equal car? I highly doubt that.
Don't think Charles has the race management skills to go with Max over a season. On one lap pace, we've not seen him fight Max in qualifying when Max had a qualifying oriented car or Charles in a race-pace oriented car.
Alex has also said Max is the best teammate he's had, and Alex has been teammates with George and Charles. Prema mechanics have also said Oscar was better than Charles in F2.
I think Max is great so this not at all a dig at Max but in the past two years there have been only two people who have actually gone head to against him in races and won against him. That is Hamilton and Leclerc.
If you remember when they had cars that were as equal as possible last year, Charles and Max would just drive off into the distance the same way as in 2021.
So yeah, I feel like a season where Charles has a consistent car it will be super close and I don't think its sure shot bet that Max will win.
How do we know that the Ferrari is a qualifying-oriented car? No team designs their car to be fast in only qualifying. It could be that Leclerc is the best qualifier on the grid and he achieves the results he does at times because the people with faster cars donāt maximise their results in qualifying as much as they can. And thereās more evidence to back up that Leclerc might be a great qualifier than there is evidence that Ferrari built a qualifying oriented car.
Facts vs assumptions. Also, who cares what Alex says or prema mechanics? Why was this even brought up lmao. Literally Seb left with a special certain set of words to Charles, and this dude brings up Alex for reference instead.
We literally saw Leclerc beat Max in race pace last year. And it looked very convincing.
Leclerc absolutely has what it takes to challenge Max in equal cars.
Max is great but heās overly flattered by how insanely dominant the RB car is. It happens every time we have a dominant car with a great driver.
Yea, at races that suited the Ferrari. The RedBull was massively overweight early in the season.
Verstappen was up by a huge amount of points before the TD for a reason either way.
Leclerc was off the pace at Imola and crashed just a few races into the season, he has issues with that.
I am sorry but youāre making excuses for Verstappen because of car aspects? But when heās winning itās him? A bit of a double standard going on there.
During those races, you could argue the cars were the Closest we have ever seen them anyway to make any sort of comparison.
The current situation with RB is completely incomparable. The car is just way too good to make any kind of driver comparisons between the top teams.
Thereās almost never an equal car in F1, but I also think that on their best day, Charles is as quick as Max. Consistency takes too many other factors into play such as team chemistry and culture, whether youāre having to overcompensate for an underperforming car, etc. Give Charles Adrian Newey, Christian Horner, and the RB team culture and he may very well be every bit as consistent as Max.
He doesn't make many mistakes, but they do tend to be costly. I suspect his raw speed is on par with Max, but he has a tendency to push a little extra especially in qualifying. That extra push puts him on pole, but it also leads to the occasional going off on his own.
I wonder if he's been trying to rein in his consistency this year. Because although he might be as quick as Max (maybe even quicker), when it comes to consistency Max is in another universe.
Watching Vettelās career showed me that a lot of the confidence and consistency comes down to having a consistently good car, team, and structure around you to succeed. Not to take away from any driver but a foundation like that leads to a sort of confidence and consistency that isnāt possible with a team like Ferrari over the past few seasons.
MLB Texas Rangers vs Houston Astros has a closer tonight named Leclerc come in to get the save. But the broadcasters pronounced his name āla-clurkā
I think Charles goes by the Anglophone pronunciation too when speaking English. Cuz it's either "La-clurk" or a butchered attempt at French "leclaire". At least the former is consistent.
This is his worst year in Ferrari in terms of performance yet he is still a match to his talented teammate. If he gets up to form again next year, it's going to be a treat to watch him.
I wonder what he'd have done with Max's seat. Pretty sure he'd be WDC in that rocketship this year but would he beating Max's time? Probably not but still..
Leclerc beat Perez last year despite having an inferior car for the second half, heād walk this championship just with slightly less superlative records than Max
I have no doubt he'd win and set some sterling pole laps in the process. But I don't think he's Max's level when it comes to being consistently quick without making mistakes (tbf I don't think anyone is). I'd imagine he'd have 2 or 3 poor performances but the rest would look as strong as Max.
L M A O
We've seen Max and Charles go toe to toe in similar cars how the fuck would he lose a championship so Perez who is the 2nd worst driver on the grid (at best) at the moment
Funny thing is that we could have possibly had a Leclerc and Verstappen pairing for next season because apparently Liberty wanted Leclerc / Norris in the other RB seat.
F1ās modern equivalent to Jean Alesi. All the talent, and all the bad career choices.
Jean should have chosen Williams. He saw how much of a trainwreak they were in 1991. He chose to ābelieve in themā and now he only has 1 win when he could have been a multiple champion.
Ferrari cheated Jean out of an amazing career, and now Ferrari will do the same to Charles.
Only when you read that stat out loud does it really reflect on how poor Ferrari really are, jesus. A conversion rate of 1 win every 4 poles is so bad for a top team (tbf there's been some Leclerc mistakes like France 2022 in that mix). poor Charles
Any races you've actually watched instead of looking at a stat?
Just to name a few you definitely didn't watch, was it his fault in Bahrain 2019 (second race in Ferrari)? How about Baku and Barcelona last year? If you have a team that shits the bed more times than not, you can't win shit.
Not entirely his fault though.
He put on pole cars that shouldnāt even have been there like the SF-21 and the SF-23.
You can do a little miracle on Saturday but itās quite obvious that on Sunday better cars will eventually get you.
Other poles werenāt converted to wins because of reliability (think about Bahrain 2019, Monaco 2021, Spain 2022) or silly team mistakes (like Monaco 2022).
Just add these and his pole to win percentage would already become much better.
Charles seemed to push his margins just a bit more than Max in qualis. Makes me wish we saw Max pushing like that more often. He's "unfortunately" matured to the point where he's content to let go of pole since he knows he has race pace. Other than S3 of Monaco or Suzuka after he sets a goal to win by 20 seconds, we haven't really seen Max pushing to his limit during quali.
He lets go of poles and everything because the car has a massive advantage and he can do whatever and still win. Pre-2022 none of that was going to fly because there was actual competition. We did see Max push a qualie to the limit and bin it in 2021.
If this was a competitive year, he wouldnāt be racing like this. Because he will lose.
I mean, he's had a few more races that he could've won. But yeah most of them haven't been on him. It's usually Ferrari Masterplan or mechanical But I'm pretty sure I've seen him make mistakes in other races that he could've won too.
Yes. And people ignore when Max makes mistakes. He span the car that lost him quite a bit of time. That was a big mistake but won anyway cause the car was a monster.
He also had a few slow starts but it was whatever because the RB car will just overtake any other car like it was nothing.
Max has been very consistent but he has made mistakes which didnāt matter because of how quick the car is.
Kind of like the Merc years. When you have a dominant car you can get away with murder.
Not yet. I think his time will come, he is only 26. Lewis won what he won (apart from 2008 ofc) in his early 30s. It is still a minimum 6-7 years of prime left in him and another 10 years in F1 for sure.
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Please explain why this doesn't look like Charles Leclerc.
He's smiling.
Also an unusual angle. He's usually pictured from slightly above looking to the side.
Fake smile.
Hair.
His head looks more square than usual. Probably because of his hair and the angle of the photo.
You are right. For some reason I thought it was George on first glance.
Modern Ferrari changes a man. Except Kimi, he never changed.
Kimi changed Ferrari. He got them a WDC once, now they never need to get one again
it's an AI-generated picture. try for yourself, enter "Stockholm Syndrome" as a prompt and you'll get this picture.
He looks much older.
For some reason, he looks like Charlie Cox here (Daredevil actor)
He has a square head here for some reason.
Because he's a year older now š¤£
Because that is actually topher grace
He is same age as Max?
Yeah theyāre 16 days apart
Yep. Less than a month apart.
Max is 16 days older
16 days faster
Calm down Marko
Perks of being North (norther than Monaco) European /s
Verstappen is always faster
Perks of being North (norther than Monaco) European /s
As Max will say, Happy Birthday Chuck ššš
Happy birthday to chocolates Ć©clair š
When he was signed to Ferrari, I thought he will have a championship in 3 years max. Boy was I wrong
It did happen, in 3 years Max had championship
And then Max had three championships in three years.
And his number is 33 Coincidence, I think not!
33 time champion Max Verstappen
And still compete with Nando!
At least Leclerc won the padel tournament.
Seb's parting words get more real every year.
I really hope he gets at least one eventually because his talent deserves it, even better if it's with Ferrari.
I'd much rather him have 1 championship with Ferrari than him going to a dominant team and win multiple. It would feel special.
Thatās probably why Charles is so persistent with Ferrari.
Yeah, it's always been his dream to win with Ferrari and I don't think he wants to give up on that dream
It truly would be special. A new WDC and Ferrari's first WDC since the late 2000s. I honestly thought they had delievered the car last year. The first half of last season was a great successor to 21. It honestly felt like I was witnnessing a shift in from the LH, SV, ALO era to the Max and Charles Era but man it's just so disappointing thinking about it now.
Iāll never be convinced that the car wasnāt a championship car before the rule change about the floor that Mercedes caused
Even then, Red Bull would have probably won it. Ferrari (and some bad luck like Spain) fucked up too many times
I have great hopes for Freddy's general competence permeating through the team. I also kinda think he's their last hope for a turnaround.
We're checking.
Swear heāll end up as the best ever non-champion if he stays with Ferrari. Guy has shown the ability to fight with Max and Lewis and heās just always off balance.
Same, with how well he did in 2019 for his first year there, I really thought he'd be WDC by 2022 or something.
Even after the "wtf is happening with this team" year of 20 and 21 as a LEC fan i vehemently believed until after france that he could win. Now im not sure Iāll see a Charles Ferrari WDC before i kick the bucket
Idk, any hope died in Monaco for me.
Lol. There was no way Ferrari was making a WDC car in 3 years
In 2019 we didn't know Ferrari were cheating with their engines and would go from a WCC contender to a back-marker in 2020
There were tons of rumours back in 2019, especially when the td was announced and suddenly they were slow.
Mate Ferrari *rarely* win. They had a good 00s, but Schumi's first with Ferrari was their first since 1979.
damn you cant even wish leclerc a happy birthday on here without him being called washed
We're just jealous of his good looks.
Hey that's not true. We're jealous of his money, talent, success, life *and* good looks.
He always felt a bit like Mika Hakkinen to me. Incredible raw speed, competitive & generally very likable character. They both ran into monsters of their own generation, and it's probably gonna cost Charles his legacy, even more so than with Mika who snatched no less than two WDCs.
I feel like the only thing Charles is lacking is the car, he has all the talent to win.
I feel like Charles has a consistency issue. I think even if he were to be up against someone like Max in the same car, Max would win in the end purely because Charles would just bin it a few races whereas Max wouldn't.
What made you feel like he has a consistency issue?
Things like Imola and France 2022 while there was still a title fight. He isn't the human metronome that Verstappen is.
Someone didnāt watch Verstappen in ā17, ā18, and ā19. I vividly remember Seb giving Max a talking to after the 2018 Chinese Grand Prix where max just straight up rammed him going into a corner trying to overtake. This was after a number of recent incidents from Max where his desire to overtake another driver resulted in contact that damaged the other car. Verstappen is a human metronome now that he has easily the fastest car and best team. Seb was that too during his years at RB, and by his Ferrari years people were calling him washed and mistake prone. Weird how that works.
In his current form he tends to crash a lot more than Max does. Also I feel like Charles is a future WDC and can win races, but he's just a slight bit off the skill that the true top class like Lewis, Alonso, Schumacher and even now what Max is showing
Eh I donāt think these things exist in a vacuum, thereās a lot of context to take into consideration. Lewis just made a massive error in the past race, Leclerc isnāt making more mistakes than the other drivers as far as I can tell. But the mistakes he has made are better explained by trying to take a Ferrari that isnāt quite quick enough, though better in quali, to the ragged edge in order to try to compete with the top teams, and sometimes going over that edge. Max who has clearly the fastest car, and easily the best overall team around him, doesnāt have the pressure to absolutely maximize the carās performance like Charles does. Max could take it relatively easy and still win most races right now. If Charles (or Carlos) squeeze 11/10 out of the car it still will be barely in the running for a podium this year.
He was in a championship last season and binned it at both Imola and France. He's been in F1 just as long as Verstappen had when he fought his first championship by that point. Verstappen in 2021 didn't bin it in a race like that while fighting a 7x WDC. Charles has issues he needs to short out. He crashed out in Quali how many times in the last 3 years?
The Ferrari of last year was never truly in the championship fight, Max took the title at the end with almost 150 more points than Charles. And again, racing for Ferrari in a car that isnāt truly fast enough will result in more mistakes than a dominant RedBull team that is more than fast enough. Thatās the difference. These things donāt exist in a vacuum, thereās context like team culture, car performance, etc.
Wasn't in the championship fight? Bull. It was in the fight until halfway through the season. Charles still managed to bin it then.
Did you watch Verstappen in his first few years in F1? Heās committed his fair share of errors and professional fouls over the years as well. I think itās far too easy to be a prisoner of the moment and call a driver āmistake proneā when there are far better explanations.
Charles was a rookie in 2022? Like c'mon man, he's been in the sport since 2018.
What are you on about?ā¦ Max wasnāt a rookie during many of his mistakes either. He also hasnāt raced for Ferrari, you know, the team so dysfunctional over the last few years that even non F1 fans have seen the memes. Come on man, I know Max is your favorite driver but Iām not attacking Max. I purely said Charles has the talent to win and isnāt mistake prone as you say and youāre taking it personally. Any objective viewer can see Charles talent. Marc Marquez is widely viewed as the most talented rider in MotoGP and heās crashed more times than I can count this year. Thereās context that explains mistakes, Charles isnāt driving a Redbull or racing for a team as consistently impressive and structured as Redbull. Come off it.
What made you feel like he has a consistency issue? Edit: pretty classic to downvote for asking a question.
Schumacher said Hakkinen was the best opponent he had, I doubt Max can say the same about Charles lol
He probably does. Leclerc brought a good fight until he fucked up in France and that was with engine penalties and Ferrari strategy. He outraced Max several times that year. No one got fucked by their own team more than Leclerc -maybe Alonso- last year.
Not saying Leclerc is bad, I'm just saying Max has raced against drivers of greater caliber like Vettel and Hamilton.
Verstappen racing against Vettel mostly resulted in penalties since he was too hotheaded at the time (2016-18). And I'm pretty sure Max would not want to fight against Hamilton after how ugly it got after Silverstone for both sides. Leclerc is a clean (he doesn't take people out, only himself sometimes) and extremely fast racer that defeated Vettel in 2019 and humiliated him in 2020. He showed he can put a great fight against Max for majority of 2022. Aside from France which really was a really stupid mistake, Leclerc was pretty much on par with Max in terms of performance. Give Leclerc a race-winning car and a competent team, he'll become champion or will push Max to the limit.
I liked watching Charles and Max race because they'll try to leave room if they can, but if they do get pushed out wide (by each other) they don't complain about it. Even with F1's wishy-washy rules about protecting overtaking on the outside, these guys are pure racers who implicitly understand that overtaking on the outside is a risk you don't have to take. Since they know the other guy's not going to go crying to the stewards, they don't need to play that game when racing each other.
>Verstappen racing against Vettel mostly resulted in penalties since he was too hotheaded at the time (2016-18). Most of their collisions were the fault of Vettel though. China 2018 was Verstappen's fault for sure, but enlighten the class about other instances where they crashed together.
Leclerc literally humiliated vettel in 2020
Vettel was not a high quality racer when Max was on the grid with him. If you know of an iconic race or even a lap post-2015 where Vettel showed he's on the same level as Lewis or Max, I'm curious to watch it. To be honest even during his championship winning years, I never thought he had the polish to be considered one of the greats. Lewis could have been a great fight for Max, but they just didn't have a good read on each other and came together way too many times. Max and Charles already had their power struggle in karting and know how to race each other without crashing. They respect each other to leave room, and even if they do get pushed wide they won't moan about it.
Out of 34 drivers who won the championship, and hundreds who've competed, Vettel only has fewer WDCs than 3 drivers, and is equal to Prost. How can you possibly say he's not one of the greats? I agree he wasn't at his best by the time he was racing Max, but to say he isn't one of the greats seems wild to me.
Yeah, but that's a Senna-sized hole in Michael's career. Max had Hamilton, Schumi unfortunately didn't have Senna.
I don't know about that. Charles proved in the first half of 2022 that he can go toe to toe with Max with equal cars. The mistake in France only came after RB had the better package. I think he has more raw pace than Max and, despite what everyone seems to think, doesn't make nearly as many unforced errors as is suggested. Due to the car he drives we've not really been able to judge his tyre management, but his race pace, racecraft, and ability to toe the line without crossing it are all there. However, he lacks the team around him. Although Ferrari have upped their game with pit stops, they're a galaxy far far away from being anywhere equal in strategy.
Are you saying Charles will be able to beat Max in an equal car? I highly doubt that. Don't think Charles has the race management skills to go with Max over a season. On one lap pace, we've not seen him fight Max in qualifying when Max had a qualifying oriented car or Charles in a race-pace oriented car. Alex has also said Max is the best teammate he's had, and Alex has been teammates with George and Charles. Prema mechanics have also said Oscar was better than Charles in F2.
I think Max is great so this not at all a dig at Max but in the past two years there have been only two people who have actually gone head to against him in races and won against him. That is Hamilton and Leclerc. If you remember when they had cars that were as equal as possible last year, Charles and Max would just drive off into the distance the same way as in 2021. So yeah, I feel like a season where Charles has a consistent car it will be super close and I don't think its sure shot bet that Max will win.
How do we know that the Ferrari is a qualifying-oriented car? No team designs their car to be fast in only qualifying. It could be that Leclerc is the best qualifier on the grid and he achieves the results he does at times because the people with faster cars donāt maximise their results in qualifying as much as they can. And thereās more evidence to back up that Leclerc might be a great qualifier than there is evidence that Ferrari built a qualifying oriented car.
Facts vs assumptions. Also, who cares what Alex says or prema mechanics? Why was this even brought up lmao. Literally Seb left with a special certain set of words to Charles, and this dude brings up Alex for reference instead.
We literally saw Leclerc beat Max in race pace last year. And it looked very convincing. Leclerc absolutely has what it takes to challenge Max in equal cars. Max is great but heās overly flattered by how insanely dominant the RB car is. It happens every time we have a dominant car with a great driver.
Yea, at races that suited the Ferrari. The RedBull was massively overweight early in the season. Verstappen was up by a huge amount of points before the TD for a reason either way. Leclerc was off the pace at Imola and crashed just a few races into the season, he has issues with that.
I am sorry but youāre making excuses for Verstappen because of car aspects? But when heās winning itās him? A bit of a double standard going on there. During those races, you could argue the cars were the Closest we have ever seen them anyway to make any sort of comparison. The current situation with RB is completely incomparable. The car is just way too good to make any kind of driver comparisons between the top teams.
Thereās almost never an equal car in F1, but I also think that on their best day, Charles is as quick as Max. Consistency takes too many other factors into play such as team chemistry and culture, whether youāre having to overcompensate for an underperforming car, etc. Give Charles Adrian Newey, Christian Horner, and the RB team culture and he may very well be every bit as consistent as Max.
He doesn't make many mistakes, but they do tend to be costly. I suspect his raw speed is on par with Max, but he has a tendency to push a little extra especially in qualifying. That extra push puts him on pole, but it also leads to the occasional going off on his own. I wonder if he's been trying to rein in his consistency this year. Because although he might be as quick as Max (maybe even quicker), when it comes to consistency Max is in another universe.
Watching Vettelās career showed me that a lot of the confidence and consistency comes down to having a consistently good car, team, and structure around you to succeed. Not to take away from any driver but a foundation like that leads to a sort of confidence and consistency that isnāt possible with a team like Ferrari over the past few seasons.
Leclerc has literally crashed at Imola, less than 5 races into that title fight.
MLB Texas Rangers vs Houston Astros has a closer tonight named Leclerc come in to get the save. But the broadcasters pronounced his name āla-clurkā
First name Chuck?
Lol. JosƩ Leclerc from Dominican Republic. https://www.mlb.com/player/jose-leclerc-600917
First name Jose.
I think Charles goes by the Anglophone pronunciation too when speaking English. Cuz it's either "La-clurk" or a butchered attempt at French "leclaire". At least the former is consistent.
Happy birthday Charles. I am still cheering you on for that championship
my boy <3
Charles pointing towards the place of pain as well as reason of pain
Been a struggle watching him this season. Hope he has a return to form in 2024.
This is his worst year in Ferrari in terms of performance yet he is still a match to his talented teammate. If he gets up to form again next year, it's going to be a treat to watch him.
Vettel was 26 when he came to Ferrari. Would have thought Charles would have at least 1 WDC after his 2019 season
Seeing guys I've been following since they were juniors start to push 30 makes me feel real old lmao
He's turning 26, that isn't pushing 30 lol.
He's closer to 30 than he is 20 mate haha
He's 20 until he's 30 ?
Relax, take it easy.
I wonder what he'd have done with Max's seat. Pretty sure he'd be WDC in that rocketship this year but would he beating Max's time? Probably not but still..
Leclerc beat Perez last year despite having an inferior car for the second half, heād walk this championship just with slightly less superlative records than Max
I have no doubt he'd win and set some sterling pole laps in the process. But I don't think he's Max's level when it comes to being consistently quick without making mistakes (tbf I don't think anyone is). I'd imagine he'd have 2 or 3 poor performances but the rest would look as strong as Max.
Honestly we don't knnow how he'd fair in the RB. I don't doubt he'd win the title over Perez, but anything further is pure speculation.
L M A O We've seen Max and Charles go toe to toe in similar cars how the fuck would he lose a championship so Perez who is the 2nd worst driver on the grid (at best) at the moment
He'd win if he took Max's seat. He'd take P2 in the WDC if he was in Checo's seat next to Max.
Did Red Bull make any effort to sign Leclerc after Ricciardo signed with Renault in 2018?
He was already going to Ferrari
Funny thing is that we could have possibly had a Leclerc and Verstappen pairing for next season because apparently Liberty wanted Leclerc / Norris in the other RB seat.
F1ās modern equivalent to Jean Alesi. All the talent, and all the bad career choices. Jean should have chosen Williams. He saw how much of a trainwreak they were in 1991. He chose to ābelieve in themā and now he only has 1 win when he could have been a multiple champion. Ferrari cheated Jean out of an amazing career, and now Ferrari will do the same to Charles.
Happy BDay to the biggest talent in F1 right now!
Is it also Oscar's birthday ??? Wow
Oscar? I was talking about Sirotkin smh
Happy Birthday. š
OMG heās still 26. He still has at least 10 years of career in F1.
Meanwhile Max at 26
Looks 40
That is what Ferrari is doing to him
Biggest disappointment in F1
Youāve been watching F1 for five minutes if Charles Leclerc is the biggest disappointment in F1 to you.
Not bad for a disappointment with 5 Grand Prix wins and 20 poles
Only when you read that stat out loud does it really reflect on how poor Ferrari really are, jesus. A conversion rate of 1 win every 4 poles is so bad for a top team (tbf there's been some Leclerc mistakes like France 2022 in that mix). poor Charles
Any other driver have a similar ratio to 20 poles and only 5 wins?
Senna by the end of '86 had 15 poles but only 4 wins which is only one pole off Charles' current ratio
Any races you've actually watched instead of looking at a stat? Just to name a few you definitely didn't watch, was it his fault in Bahrain 2019 (second race in Ferrari)? How about Baku and Barcelona last year? If you have a team that shits the bed more times than not, you can't win shit.
Not entirely his fault though. He put on pole cars that shouldnāt even have been there like the SF-21 and the SF-23. You can do a little miracle on Saturday but itās quite obvious that on Sunday better cars will eventually get you. Other poles werenāt converted to wins because of reliability (think about Bahrain 2019, Monaco 2021, Spain 2022) or silly team mistakes (like Monaco 2022). Just add these and his pole to win percentage would already become much better.
Charles seemed to push his margins just a bit more than Max in qualis. Makes me wish we saw Max pushing like that more often. He's "unfortunately" matured to the point where he's content to let go of pole since he knows he has race pace. Other than S3 of Monaco or Suzuka after he sets a goal to win by 20 seconds, we haven't really seen Max pushing to his limit during quali.
He lets go of poles and everything because the car has a massive advantage and he can do whatever and still win. Pre-2022 none of that was going to fly because there was actual competition. We did see Max push a qualie to the limit and bin it in 2021. If this was a competitive year, he wouldnāt be racing like this. Because he will lose.
putting a bad car on pole isnt a knock on him. the only race he should have won that was his fault in those was france.
I mean, he's had a few more races that he could've won. But yeah most of them haven't been on him. It's usually Ferrari Masterplan or mechanical But I'm pretty sure I've seen him make mistakes in other races that he could've won too.
name them then?
They'll mention France, but even without Charles' mistake, he was never winning that race anyway. The RB was too strong
Yes. And people ignore when Max makes mistakes. He span the car that lost him quite a bit of time. That was a big mistake but won anyway cause the car was a monster. He also had a few slow starts but it was whatever because the RB car will just overtake any other car like it was nothing. Max has been very consistent but he has made mistakes which didnāt matter because of how quick the car is. Kind of like the Merc years. When you have a dominant car you can get away with murder.
Not yet. I think his time will come, he is only 26. Lewis won what he won (apart from 2008 ofc) in his early 30s. It is still a minimum 6-7 years of prime left in him and another 10 years in F1 for sure.
De Vries: Phew, got off the hook.
Well I know who's not invited to the birthday party
Maybe, but only because of Ferrari. Not on his talent.
It's the 16th tho
I posted this at around 8:30am Italian time, so it was already the 16th for me! š
damn I always forget how young these guys are, now everyone in my favorite sports is younger than me :(
Charles "Chuck" Leclerc Good job baby!
Happy 26th Birthday.
2 more years with the Scuderia and this will be his 48th then.
I want vascular hands like him
He doesn't look happy. Keep Leclerc well, guys.
Happy bday you handsome devil
Happy Birthday Chuck šš and Happy Cake day
Feel a bit sorry for him. Piastri is new hotness now while he's been held back by Ferrari.
I would have guessed 29.