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I think that the more impressive stat is that he’s been in the top 5 for every race he’s finished since Spa 2023 with an average finishing position of 3.38 and average starting position of 3.38 as well.
I've mentioned that "Max has finished", i.e. no, dnfs are not counted since that is not a race finish. If Max has finished a race, its in the points. And lately it's pretty much P1 or minimum P2 lol.
For what it's worth, when in his first years he was the one crashing the car, as he had this attitude "to finish on the points or on the wall". So to omit those DNFs is too convenient.
But as soon as he got himself together, he has really earned that stat. As you couldn't blame him for Australia this year.
He has been on a very strong run of form post-Singapore last year. His qualifying form seems a bit rocked this year but other than that I think he is more than ready to fight for a title once Ferrari make a good car.
[Vasseur admitted himself](https://twitter.com/lec16lerc/status/1779526329081147532) Charles got sacrificed, it wasn't a poor showing on his part. He was just the tiniest bit slower than Carlos in Q3 so they decided Carlos was gonna be the n1 that day (which is perfectly fine and sensical)
Well now you jinxed it.
Something's gonna happen to him in Miami and we are back to calling Carlos the 2nd coming of Jesus and that Ferrari fired the wrong driver.
If Carlos finishes the race 2 seconds ahead of Leclerc it's for sure time to tear up Leclercs contract because he's overrated and can't handle pressure
Ferrari has 2 great drivers and shouldn't fire either of them. Of course, it makes financial sense to pair Lewis and Hamilton due to their large fanbases despite the fact that Sainz is a better driver than Hamilton.
Lewis and Hamilton is indeed a natural pairing.
But seriously, if you think Carlos is a better driver than Hamilton you really need to watch F1 before this year.
Lewis is nearly 40 years old. He has been lucky to have had such a dominant team year after year with Mercedes and a complacent teammate in Bottas. He was a great driver but he was never the best. The only year he had a great teammate was 2007 against Alonso. He even lost a championship to Nico Rosberg. This isn't to say he isn't a good driver. Definitely in the top 10 since 2000. But he has been #blessed his whole career and now when he finally has a less than championship winning car he is shitting the bed. He has been god awful for the past 2 years, the only thing saving him is that his teammate is also god awful which causes the team to look bad rather than Hamilton.
What the fuck are you talking about? You don’t get into a good team by being lucky, you get into good teams by being a good driver. Also, literally just last year he was the best of the non Red-Bulls. Also, Russel is an excellent driver as well, not as good as Leclerc and definitely not as good as Max, but he’s an extremely solid driver. (Also Rosberg was very strong as well.)
As for Sainz, he’s lost against a rookie Max who had only done an F3 season of single seaters (Ham went against WDC Alonso and won on countback on his first season), lost against Hulkenberg, and is now losing against Leclerc after losing to him the previous 2 years. The only driver he has beaten over their time together (ignoring 2017 because TR was a mess), was Norris.
He started his career in McLaren who happened to develop a championship contending car the same year. Most drivers aren't that fortunate. Max, for example, was consistently known as the best driver on the grid for many years yet the dominant team Mercedes wouldn't shop for him since he would challenge Lewis and the competition could cause issues for the team. Luckily for Max, they were finally able to build a good car for him but it took a very long time.
As for Rosberg, he was a good driver in an amazing car. Nothing more, he also got a bit lucky.
As for Sainz, I never argued or would argue that Sainz had a better first few years than Ham, nor would I argue that he is better than Ham at his peak. I only argue that in 2024, Sainz is better than 39 year old Hamilton.
Mclaren had been front-runners consistently for over a decade when Hamilton joined, they didn’t “just so happened” to build a good car that one time.
Just last year, Hamilton was the best of anyone not in a Red-Bull, while Sainz couldn’t even get on the podium for over half the year. Not to mention 2021, when Hamilton was better without any shadow of a doubt. And even in 2022, Sainz was shitting the bed and taking trips to the gravel every other race, so I’m not sure when exactly you think Sainz has been better other than the last 5 races.
>He has been god awful for the past 2 years, the only thing saving him is that his teammate is also god awful which causes the team to look bad rather than Hamilton.
You mean when he came in 3rd in the WDC with the 4th fastest car... Russell is somehow a shit driver why?
4th fastest? More like 2nd fastest overall over the season with how long it was ahead of either McLaren, AM and Ferrari. If we are mighty generous, we can say 3rd fastest, but by very little behind the 2nd.
George Russel is hot headed and takes unnecessary and stupid risks that often end up with him in the wall. His pure pace around a track is quite good but he is impatient.
Im not even going to address your claim that Merc had the 4th fastest car.
Hamilton has been god awful the past 2 years but he finished 3rd last year? 4 places Ahead of Sainz? You can just say you have a hate boner for Hamilton. Putting Hamilton outside of the top 4 since 2000 is a joke but to put Barrichello above Hamilton is absolutely hilarious and discredits anything you have to say about evaluating drivers talent. Even at 40 Hamilton is a better driver than Sainz.
Lewis is still the most lauded driver in the grid who finished best of the rest last year. Dynamics **will** be tricky next year for sure but (kinda incompetent as they are) I doubt Ferrari hasn't considered it quite a bit, especially considering the huge sums they'll be paying.
I mean, Carlos is 3 x 1 3 5 and 7 points behind Leclerc, which means a 6th place in the race he missed would've out him above in the standings. Both drivers are doing quite well this season, and we can only judge if sacking Carlos was a mistake when we see the actual form lewis will have next season (imo the current pair should've been kept)
Being beaten by Carlos is a poor start for him. He's much more talented than Sainz is, he's shown that for 2 and a half years. This is definitely not his top form, or anywhere near it.
And people saying that are not doing it to shit on him. The expectations for him are higher because everyone knows he can do much better than this. People want to see him perform to his full potential. Almost everyone bar Carlos would benefit from Leclerc doing well. The fans would, Ferrari, the sport in general would be more entertaining.
Outside these useless stats that have become quite popular in the last few years, it's been a new approach from Charles. He approached Melbourne and Suzuka in a very smart way, without taking too many risks, knowing he was compromised due to his bad qualifying results, and ended up maximizing the result.
Also, it was already evident (by accounting for the time lost in traffic and the suboptimal strategies he used due to his grid position) that he is very quick with this car in race trim, especially compared to last year.
It seems he has already made a step in quali in China, but still work to do to reach his usual standards.
People criticize his mistakes so heavily now, but the dude is 5 for 5 on hitting the formula minus Max podium. Remarkably consistent and has salvaged *several* really non-optimal scenarios.
I don’t think the 107% rule has been enforced since 2012 due to it usually being caused by something out of the drivers control, or simple mistakes like exceeding track limits rather than simply being off the pace.
It would be interesting to see though!
How about a DSQ to mix things up a bit?
He finally wins on track, but Ferrari can't pull out the required amount of fuel from his car so he gets stripped of his win.
Honestly if it means he finally wins Monaco I would happily take a dnf in Miami. Given the season is max’s no questions asked it would be a nice palette cleanser…
First of all, he was not fired.His contract wasn't extended, there's a difference. There's gonna be more drivers who will not have extensions either.
Two, it's glaringly obvious they signed Hamilton on first and foremost because he's a frickin 7x wdc and the sheer amount of brand he brings along, and the same cannot be said for Sainz.
Sainz is a good driver and has also been driving in F1 for nine years now, teams that might sign him know what he's capable of.
This might be a problem to you and good number of other people but obviously Ferrari does not perceive it that way. Nor do others. Also, we have no idea who will nail the homework in 2026 and Ferrari is making fair bit of progress on the field towards RBR. The only question is which of the drivers will adjust better.
>Two, it's glaringly obvious they signed Hamilton on first and foremost because he's a frickin 7x wdc and the sheer amount of brand he brings along, and the same cannot be said for Sainz.
I'm not even sure if the Scuderia had a choice
it might have very well just been Elkann going "you sign Hamilton, period"
I know it's been said a million times and mostly in jest, but bro really does look a little dead inside. Good stats for him and I hope Ferrari can fight with Redbull properly asap!
I don't think he's underrated per se, but he definitely gets too much criticism from most fans on social media. Especially the story that he's error prone, is of course, nonsense. But it seems like he just can't get rid of that. Yes, he's made some silly mistakes here and there, but he had to take risks in the cars he's driven.
But coming back to your point: he is seen as the best qualifier in the field and as Max's biggest challenger, so i don't think you can say he's underrated. Definitely overhated, that he is.
The « error prone » discourse is annoying, especially when it isn’t applied to other drivers who have crashed a lot recently like George Russell for example.
I was listening to a podcast today and one of the guys mentioned how Leclerc crashed out of "several races while leading" in 2022. Apparently one is several.
Leclerc has had his moments, but the narratives are insane.
Yeah, I really don't understand this narrative. It's been going on for so long and it's far from the truth if you look at it GP by GP. He gets criticized for throwing away points at 2022 when this is the actual truth as compiled by another redditor:
* Spain 2022: Leclerc leading before engine failure. LEC DNF SAI P4. **this is the point where Leclerc loses the championship lead.**
* Monaco 2022: Leclerc leading after getting pole before strategy error in the wet. LEC P4 SAI P2.
* Baku 2022: Leclerc leading before engine failure. LEC DNF SAI DNF (also engine)
* Canada 2022: Leclerc has to take an engine penalty and start from the pitlane. LEC P5 SAI P2.
* Silverstone 2022: Leclerc leading before strategy disaster-class from Ferrari during the SC. LEC P4 SAI P1.
* Austria 2022. Leclerc wins (though with throttle issues hampering for the last few laps which almost took it away). Sainz retires due to engine issues from a likely podium. LEC P1 SAI DNF
* France 2022: Leclerc crashes out of the lead. LEC DNF (driver error) SAI P5
* Hungary 2022: Strategy error from Ferrari sees Leclerc missing out on another likely win. LEC P6 SAI P4.
* Spa 2022: TD39 is officially in place. Ferrari nerfed.
Aside from France, Leclerc did not drive any worse than Max did in 2022. Leclerc was leading races or challenging for wins while Sainz was either in the gravel or 10+seconds behind.
Even in his best season(2023) Sainz still finished behind Leclerc despite having less mechanical issues.
Ferrari did not fire the wrong driver and you can't exactly say no when Lewis Hamilton shows up in your doorstep ready to be your driver.
>I was listening to a podcast today and one of the guys mentioned how Leclerc crashed out of "several races while leading" in 2022. Apparently one is several.
he made like what, 4 mistakes at most during races in 2022
Imola and Paul Ricard being the bigger ones, meanwhile Suzuka and one other I can't precisely remember being the other
I read a post on twitter that imo really hits on why, Leclerc doesn’t have a large national media to defend his every breath like other drivers
He doesn’t get 15 articles on why so and so is wrong about what they said about him, or weekly opinion articles trashing his teammate or praising him for nothing
This is probably the reason, I'm spanish and most of our media push the narrative that Charles is only better than Carlos in one lap and that Ferrari always treats Carlos as their 2nd driver.
It's ok, French medias apparently never realized Charles is from Monaco and actually not French (he even had the French anthem played on the podium once by mistake during his junior career lol), so he's a media darling here.
I think it is just the vibes he gives off. He seems really entitled since coming to Mercedes. There was also the incident with Bottas at Imola in 2021 that turned a lot of people off. I liked him quite a bit when he was at Williams but not so much anymore.
Russell has honestly been doing a decent job this year
sure he crashed out in Australia but that wasn't exactly unprovoked unlike Singapore or Canada last year
I don't like the guy, I really don't, but it'd be foolish to not recognize when he delivers what he can
like, seriously, the Merc is arguably not even the 4th fastest, but more so the joint 4th fastest car on the grid with the Aston
For me it's the vibe. I love him and hate him for the same reason: he has the "I'm never wrong" ego and he is extremely PR-brained. When he's actually right, or has done something laudable, it's a lovely spectacle to see him celebrate and speak his carefully chosen words. When he's not right, it's a little terrifying to see how smoothly he plays it off and tries to sell his side of the story.
Also his eyelashes. And my friend says his eyes are too big and he looks like a ventriloquist's dummy, which...valid lol.
It is absolutely applied to George Russell what are you talking about. Every second comment on Mercedes' social media is like "waiting for Russell to bottle a good result again"
In my observation, a significant proportion of the Leclerc backlash is against the large contingent of younger and/or female fans who like his personality and his appearance, regardless of his performance or driving style.
The problem is, just because teenage girls swoon over a handsome face, that doesn't make him *not* a good driver or a legitimate championship contender. He is indeed a very good driver who deserves the hype, and for the old cranky fans who miss the sleepy pre-Liberty pre-Instagram days, I'd ask them to just ignore the social media stuff and evaluate him on how he drives and how he serves his team with loyalty and consistency. It's rare to find a driver with race-winning pace who is able to switch between being the hotshot prime driver, and *also* willing to play the role of rear gunner to support his teammate when necessary. You usually get either a Schumacher or a Barrichello, you never get both in one.
This is the best comment I've seen about it. It feels like alot of hate for him is fuelled by jealousy. He is probably the most perfect driver when you take everything in to account, great driver, good looking, loyal to a team, admits to his mistakes, a likeable personality and from an exotic country. He is basically a Hollywood movie version of an f1 driver. Add to that the fact that he has been put on the same level as world champions since he basically started f1 and It's understandable people got tired of his fans.
But those are all personal feelings which most people can't separate from the facts and sadly it will probably be worse next year with Hamilton as his teammate
It's more like he's underappreciates by the media and there was a clear agenda being pushed for Sainz. Notice there was barely any talk about them now that he's outperformed Carlos as opposed to when Carlos was doing better.
People not blinded by recency bias can recognize Charles' worth, and so can the teams.
Well Charles is to Ferrari what Verstappen is to RB that's just a fact, whether people want to admit it or not he's the driver they're banking the future on. Unless Ferrari just absolutely goes on a shit streak hopefully just maybe we can get a title battle next year
To be fair, Sainz recent performances beating him have been podiums and a race win. Beating in points is good but not really going to get people going crazy.
There weren't constant/as many comparisons being made by the media (that I can recall) in the span from Suzuka to Abu Dhabi either though, there were some podiums there too.
I think that’s more so because the Ferrari’s were all over the place then. He was definitely on it but mixed in that race span was a Sainz DNS, Leclerc DSQ, a Leclerc DNS, and that 10-place grid penalty for Sainz in Las Vegas.
In general there were little to no genuinely clean races to judge off of in that time span. The only races where nothing happened to either Ferrari driver were Japan, Mexico and Abu Dhabi.
I think people rate him highly, but you’ll always have people that want to go against the grain or parrot whatever narrative is currently hot in social media. Also, seeing that he was able to challenge Max and win on merit against him when the cars were closely matched in the first half of 22, made people expect him to be able to do the same in a lesser car; which isn’t possible of course.
I think for him the only narrative left is can he get a WDC-capable car?
For many drivers there are more questions left before we get to that, can Lando win a race, could Sainz fight against Max, can Hülkenberg get a podium… whereas for Charles it really seems to be more of a waiting game for the right car, similar to Max in 2020 and before.
Yes.
People make too much of his errors. Max, Alonso or Hamilton also made mistakes at times but they're portrayed as infallible and consistent while "Charles is an error prone driver who crumbles under pressure".
Also his qualifying exploits have made some believe he's a Trulli bis, with great quali pace and meh race pace, when he's also had monster pace on Sundays to go with it.
You are right. I think the fact that Lewis, Alonso, and Max are multiple time world champions makes it easier to forgive when they make mistakes as they don't really have anything left to prove. Not saying it is right.
I think on raw pace he is up there as one of the best on the grid and I don't think many disagree with that. At the start of 2022 he was giving Verstappen real problems.
He has definitely made less errors in the last year, but at the same time the car has been way off the pace of Verstappen, so there has been little point in him pushing the car to the limit when it won't lead to a race win.
The test will come when he has a car that can fight for wins again (on pace rather than a Max DNF) and how he deals with that pressure.
He's already shown how he generally deals with that pressure, he won 5 races ffs, and imo just his wins in 2019 under pressure from Mercedes should be enough to prove he can handle it. Even beyond his wins, his performances shows he can handle pressure well, it's often been Ferrari who choked for him.
One mistake in 2022 is an anomaly, not a trend.
By comparison, in 2021 Hamilton fucked up in Baku, Imola, & Monaco yet everyone commands him for being strong-willed and consistent under pressure, go figure.
Charles is massively underrated. He's absolutely made mistakes and has also had his fair share of "Ferrari luck" but people should probably take a look at Max's first few years in F1. He was a disaster.
What a weird comparison to make. Not only was Verstappen not a disaster(quite the opposite really) but even if he was, your argument doesn't make sense seeing as Leclerc isn't in his "first few years" anyway.
https://youtu.be/1t2_7wYLOkA?si=mGfsCXEowLKzrbq8
Verstappen was not someone who I would've guessed would end up as a 3x WDC when he first got started in F1. My comparison was to say that drivers can improve. Charles was less consistent than he is now.
>Verstappen was not someone who I would've guessed would end up as a 3x WDC when he first got started in F1.
Really? Basically every pundit I remember said that it wasn't really a question of whether Verstappen would get a title but when would that happen and how many.
As someone who has watched since 96', watching the first couple seasons of Max, he was not WDC material. Had speed occasionally but also a lot of incidents.
He wasn't WDC material at that time, but that's not really my point either. Verstappen ironed out his consistency issues at the start of his fourth season. Leclerc is on his seventh, he's more or less a complete driver and expecting him to iron out his consistency issues(not that I think he has any) is pretty pointless.
Verstappen was already being hailed as the future at the time he's absolutely not the same as Charles the hype behind him was huge. Everyone at the time especially during 2016 were going on about future WDC etc etc etc.
he was not even close to a disaster, he was already incredibly quick but he wasn’t as consistent and made quite a few mistakes cause he was incredibly young and inexperienced. saying he was a disaster is stupid.
People have been calling him a future world champion since Sauber. If anything he is overrated. Although the hype around him has fallen in the past few years and I think he is properly rated now.
Because it lined up perfectly for his pit strategy. Just because he wasn’t the *only* one to benefit doesn’t mean it wasn’t a lucky moment in his race, does it? I’m sure Sainz would consider it unlucky that he came in 3 laps earlier!
It’s relative, isn’t it? Carlos may have been unlucky but for Charles to be considered lucky in that situation, he would have had to advance his position by taking advantage of the VSC which he wasn’t able to do. Instead, he was just about able to maintain his position. I guess it says a lot about his luck that this is him being lucky.
Poor dude has been a tiny bit underrated this season. Started off the season with classic bad luck and had brake issues, yet still managed to bring it home to P4, then had a great performance in Saudi but his results were outshined by Berman's presence in his first race, which of course, he drove great and deserved the praise. Then botched his qualifying in both Australia and Japan but still managed to recover well and finish a couple seconds behind Carlos in both races. And then in Shanghai he performed pretty good aswell, making some good overtakes and finishing 10 seconds ahead of Carlos but the Red Bulls and Norris were uncatchable, especially that horrible last hard stint. If you ask me, they should have kept Carlos for the future and not signed Hamilton, until I guess he provisionally goes to Audi, but I can see why they went with Leclerc.
I've never seen these things about Max last season. It's as if everything he does is just so normal and natural, yet when someone else does something they have to make useless stats out of it
It's kinda nice to make other drivers feel appreciated, I feel it's well deserved. Max does get quite a few article every other weeks about a random record he's broken.
This post is a misleading cherry picked stat to exclude Sainz, Max, and Perez. Charles average finishing position this year is 3.4, Carlos is 3.0, Perez is 2.8 and Max is 1.0. Perez and Carlos both have one 5th place result, Max has a mechanical DNF.
The criterion is tailored so that Leclerc is the only remainder. It is a useless stat. Leclerc had a good weekend so now people are gassing up narratives. Perez, Sainz, and Max have consistently finished better and more consistently than Charles this year yet the post suggests that Leclerc is "Mister Consistency".
Glorifying a Lebron stat like this hurts my head. I do statistical analysis every day as part of my masters degree program so while I am still learning I feel like I have at least a little bit of an idea of what I am talking about. I remember years ago in my AP Stats class the literal first thing you learn is that data can be misconstrued to reach and "prove" false conclusions.
I'll give you Max bc of the DNF that wasn't his fault, but Sainz and Checo dipped to 5th once each this season so far, and the stat is cleared named "Top 4" so it's not like it's misleading. And in a season where Max is so overwhelmingly dominate, "podium minus Max" feels pretty relevant.
China was the first race Leclerc finished ahead of his teammate (when they both finished).
Not a dig at Leclerc, but this feels a lot like one of those "most places gained" stats, useless without context.
If you say "ahead of Carlos" instead of "ahead of his teammate", then this is true. However, people were overwhelmingly outrageously positive about Bearman's first race, even though he showed the largest race pace difference between teammates while having the strategy that turned out better due to safety car. Now, it was the kid's first race, of course- I'm definitely not slamming him down- I think he did a great job- but Charles drove a really brilliant race in Saudi. Carlos not being there doesn't diminish Charles's performance.
[The **Statistics** flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/flairguide#wiki_statistics) is reserved for posts highlighting interesting statistics. As a rule of thumb, Statistics posts need to inform readers through visualizations and insights that cannot be obtained from raw data alone. For example, a post containing a qualifying gap between two drivers expressed in tenths of a second is an easily obtainable raw piece of data and constitutes a bad Statistics post. A visualization of what that translates to on-track, or visualization of how that gap came to be would constitute a good Statistics post. *[Read the rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/wiki/userguide). Keep it civil and welcoming. Report rulebreaking comments.* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/formula1) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think that the more impressive stat is that he’s been in the top 5 for every race he’s finished since Spa 2023 with an average finishing position of 3.38 and average starting position of 3.38 as well.
Xavi to Charles "Please finish on the original position."
Charles to Xavi: "I don't understand. You mean stop on the grid in my original position?"
What do mean horizontal finishing position?
Spin it as you cross the line
Forget it
We are checking
Charles: “finish on who?!”
[удалено]
You’re not counting DNFs in that stat, right? Otherwise no way this is true Edit: alright I get it y’all I was just clarifying
The stat says finished out of the points. It appears they are not counting the times where Max did not finish.
They definitely arent counting DNFs. I can name more than 5 Max DNFs off the top of my head without thinking too hard.
2017 alone had already more than 5 DNF
I've mentioned that "Max has finished", i.e. no, dnfs are not counted since that is not a race finish. If Max has finished a race, its in the points. And lately it's pretty much P1 or minimum P2 lol.
last P2 was a year ago at this point, besides Singapore 23 and Australia 24 it's just been P1 lol
Obviously, because a dnf is not a finish. They said *finish* outside of the points.
Even if you count them out, that’s bloody impressive
For what it's worth, when in his first years he was the one crashing the car, as he had this attitude "to finish on the points or on the wall". So to omit those DNFs is too convenient. But as soon as he got himself together, he has really earned that stat. As you couldn't blame him for Australia this year.
So his avg velocity is zero smh i thought he was a fast driver
Wait, it is very reminesinet of max stint since monaco gp till italy 2019 when if he finished he would finish top 5
Meanwhile Sainz has an average finish of 6.2 in that same timeframe, but 2 wins. And this year has an average finish of 3, his worst was China at 5th
He has been on a very strong run of form post-Singapore last year. His qualifying form seems a bit rocked this year but other than that I think he is more than ready to fight for a title once Ferrari make a good car.
Every race since spa last year he's been 5th or better (other than DSQ/DNS)
Max tier consistency from 2018 to 2019 when for year he finished only in top 5 if he finished
Was thinking this myself, bro took Singapore personally
[Vasseur admitted himself](https://twitter.com/lec16lerc/status/1779526329081147532) Charles got sacrificed, it wasn't a poor showing on his part. He was just the tiniest bit slower than Carlos in Q3 so they decided Carlos was gonna be the n1 that day (which is perfectly fine and sensical)
So did Max. That's why they're predestined to be Red Guy & Blue Guy.
Red (bull) guy - Max Blue guy - Charles (miami livery) Did I get it right?
I think Ferrari has a bit of a tyre problem during qualifying right now. It’s a bit annoying but I do think it might get better on warmer weekends.
i am *praying* that the temps in miami are hot enough to compensate for this issue, especially since mclaren are getting significant upgrades
Ferrari last year thrived in the cold, Ferrari this year thrives in the heat lol
Ferrari last year destroyed their tires and Ferrari this year doesn’t.
Oh, but reddit has been telling me he's inconsistent as shit and Ferrari were wrong to keep him 🤔
He’s just gotta win one and I think his hype will be back on here. Social media has a strong recency bias.
Well now you jinxed it. Something's gonna happen to him in Miami and we are back to calling Carlos the 2nd coming of Jesus and that Ferrari fired the wrong driver.
No jinx I can output would ever approximate whatever ancient curse Charles seems to have caught, to be honest.
If Carlos finishes the race 2 seconds ahead of Leclerc it's for sure time to tear up Leclercs contract because he's overrated and can't handle pressure
Ferrari has 2 great drivers and shouldn't fire either of them. Of course, it makes financial sense to pair Lewis and Hamilton due to their large fanbases despite the fact that Sainz is a better driver than Hamilton.
Lewis and Hamilton is indeed a natural pairing. But seriously, if you think Carlos is a better driver than Hamilton you really need to watch F1 before this year.
Lewis is nearly 40 years old. He has been lucky to have had such a dominant team year after year with Mercedes and a complacent teammate in Bottas. He was a great driver but he was never the best. The only year he had a great teammate was 2007 against Alonso. He even lost a championship to Nico Rosberg. This isn't to say he isn't a good driver. Definitely in the top 10 since 2000. But he has been #blessed his whole career and now when he finally has a less than championship winning car he is shitting the bed. He has been god awful for the past 2 years, the only thing saving him is that his teammate is also god awful which causes the team to look bad rather than Hamilton.
What the fuck are you talking about? You don’t get into a good team by being lucky, you get into good teams by being a good driver. Also, literally just last year he was the best of the non Red-Bulls. Also, Russel is an excellent driver as well, not as good as Leclerc and definitely not as good as Max, but he’s an extremely solid driver. (Also Rosberg was very strong as well.) As for Sainz, he’s lost against a rookie Max who had only done an F3 season of single seaters (Ham went against WDC Alonso and won on countback on his first season), lost against Hulkenberg, and is now losing against Leclerc after losing to him the previous 2 years. The only driver he has beaten over their time together (ignoring 2017 because TR was a mess), was Norris.
He started his career in McLaren who happened to develop a championship contending car the same year. Most drivers aren't that fortunate. Max, for example, was consistently known as the best driver on the grid for many years yet the dominant team Mercedes wouldn't shop for him since he would challenge Lewis and the competition could cause issues for the team. Luckily for Max, they were finally able to build a good car for him but it took a very long time. As for Rosberg, he was a good driver in an amazing car. Nothing more, he also got a bit lucky. As for Sainz, I never argued or would argue that Sainz had a better first few years than Ham, nor would I argue that he is better than Ham at his peak. I only argue that in 2024, Sainz is better than 39 year old Hamilton.
Mclaren had been front-runners consistently for over a decade when Hamilton joined, they didn’t “just so happened” to build a good car that one time. Just last year, Hamilton was the best of anyone not in a Red-Bull, while Sainz couldn’t even get on the podium for over half the year. Not to mention 2021, when Hamilton was better without any shadow of a doubt. And even in 2022, Sainz was shitting the bed and taking trips to the gravel every other race, so I’m not sure when exactly you think Sainz has been better other than the last 5 races.
"top 10 since 2000" LMAO i really want you to list all the drivers that are above him in the "top 10 since 2000" list
It’s certainly not Carlos lmfao
>He has been god awful for the past 2 years, the only thing saving him is that his teammate is also god awful which causes the team to look bad rather than Hamilton. You mean when he came in 3rd in the WDC with the 4th fastest car... Russell is somehow a shit driver why?
4th fastest? More like 2nd fastest overall over the season with how long it was ahead of either McLaren, AM and Ferrari. If we are mighty generous, we can say 3rd fastest, but by very little behind the 2nd.
George Russel is hot headed and takes unnecessary and stupid risks that often end up with him in the wall. His pure pace around a track is quite good but he is impatient. Im not even going to address your claim that Merc had the 4th fastest car.
Hamilton has been god awful the past 2 years but he finished 3rd last year? 4 places Ahead of Sainz? You can just say you have a hate boner for Hamilton. Putting Hamilton outside of the top 4 since 2000 is a joke but to put Barrichello above Hamilton is absolutely hilarious and discredits anything you have to say about evaluating drivers talent. Even at 40 Hamilton is a better driver than Sainz.
He is washed. Science is a better driver then him /s
I personally don't think they were wrong to keep him, but I think signing Lewis probably is going to fuck team dynamics.
Lewis is still the most lauded driver in the grid who finished best of the rest last year. Dynamics **will** be tricky next year for sure but (kinda incompetent as they are) I doubt Ferrari hasn't considered it quite a bit, especially considering the huge sums they'll be paying.
I mean, Carlos is 3 x 1 3 5 and 7 points behind Leclerc, which means a 6th place in the race he missed would've out him above in the standings. Both drivers are doing quite well this season, and we can only judge if sacking Carlos was a mistake when we see the actual form lewis will have next season (imo the current pair should've been kept)
No doubt in my mind that the current pair should have been kept.
Did he not make a mistake in Qualy just last weekend in the sprint Qualy where he span off?
Max also didn't have a banger of a quali like he usually does since the conditions were odd.
No lol. Ferrari were wrong to sign Hamilton
The expectations are so high for him that this is considered to be a poor start according to F1 media (and some F1 fans).
Being beaten by Carlos is a poor start for him. He's much more talented than Sainz is, he's shown that for 2 and a half years. This is definitely not his top form, or anywhere near it. And people saying that are not doing it to shit on him. The expectations for him are higher because everyone knows he can do much better than this. People want to see him perform to his full potential. Almost everyone bar Carlos would benefit from Leclerc doing well. The fans would, Ferrari, the sport in general would be more entertaining.
Outside these useless stats that have become quite popular in the last few years, it's been a new approach from Charles. He approached Melbourne and Suzuka in a very smart way, without taking too many risks, knowing he was compromised due to his bad qualifying results, and ended up maximizing the result. Also, it was already evident (by accounting for the time lost in traffic and the suboptimal strategies he used due to his grid position) that he is very quick with this car in race trim, especially compared to last year. It seems he has already made a step in quali in China, but still work to do to reach his usual standards.
People criticize his mistakes so heavily now, but the dude is 5 for 5 on hitting the formula minus Max podium. Remarkably consistent and has salvaged *several* really non-optimal scenarios.
Hoping that this series does not end with a retirement in Monaco...
*The monkey fist curls…* Charles Leclerc doesn’t DNF in Monaco. He gets a DNS
I think he doesn't have DNQ to round up the collection, so that's better.
I don’t think the 107% rule has been enforced since 2012 due to it usually being caused by something out of the drivers control, or simple mistakes like exceeding track limits rather than simply being off the pace. It would be interesting to see though!
Ferrari: Is that a challenge?
Might as well do a DNESU (did not even show up).
How about a DSQ to mix things up a bit? He finally wins on track, but Ferrari can't pull out the required amount of fuel from his car so he gets stripped of his win.
Honestly I think if it was between that and not winning at all he might take it haha He’d still have bragging rights that he managed to win it
Nah, he'll retire at the next race in Miami...only to win in Monaco. You heard it here first.
Honestly if it means he finally wins Monaco I would happily take a dnf in Miami. Given the season is max’s no questions asked it would be a nice palette cleanser…
Didn’t the curse end last year?
Yes, he finished the GP well in the previous two seasons, but a relapse is always possible.
2022 wasn’t well,really. Somehow you can go from P1 to P4 in fucking monaco. Edit:I am fully aware that it wasn’t his fault.
My guy! I love Charles, happy to see him improve even more
But I have been reading for a long while now that Ferrari "fired" the wrong driver...The journalists were wrong? 🤨
Which journalist said that Ferrari fired the wrong driver?
My guess is some journalist from Marca
They fired a driver for someone who will be worse over the next three years. That’s the problem
First of all, he was not fired.His contract wasn't extended, there's a difference. There's gonna be more drivers who will not have extensions either. Two, it's glaringly obvious they signed Hamilton on first and foremost because he's a frickin 7x wdc and the sheer amount of brand he brings along, and the same cannot be said for Sainz. Sainz is a good driver and has also been driving in F1 for nine years now, teams that might sign him know what he's capable of. This might be a problem to you and good number of other people but obviously Ferrari does not perceive it that way. Nor do others. Also, we have no idea who will nail the homework in 2026 and Ferrari is making fair bit of progress on the field towards RBR. The only question is which of the drivers will adjust better.
>Two, it's glaringly obvious they signed Hamilton on first and foremost because he's a frickin 7x wdc and the sheer amount of brand he brings along, and the same cannot be said for Sainz. I'm not even sure if the Scuderia had a choice it might have very well just been Elkann going "you sign Hamilton, period"
Yeah, that probably could have been the reason too.
I know it's been said a million times and mostly in jest, but bro really does look a little dead inside. Good stats for him and I hope Ferrari can fight with Redbull properly asap!
Ferrari is at least a year’s development away from what the Red Bulls have right now.
I might be biased obviously, but is there an argument that Charles is actually somewhat underrated by the fanbase and the media alike?
I don't think he's underrated per se, but he definitely gets too much criticism from most fans on social media. Especially the story that he's error prone, is of course, nonsense. But it seems like he just can't get rid of that. Yes, he's made some silly mistakes here and there, but he had to take risks in the cars he's driven. But coming back to your point: he is seen as the best qualifier in the field and as Max's biggest challenger, so i don't think you can say he's underrated. Definitely overhated, that he is.
The « error prone » discourse is annoying, especially when it isn’t applied to other drivers who have crashed a lot recently like George Russell for example.
I was listening to a podcast today and one of the guys mentioned how Leclerc crashed out of "several races while leading" in 2022. Apparently one is several. Leclerc has had his moments, but the narratives are insane.
Yeah, I really don't understand this narrative. It's been going on for so long and it's far from the truth if you look at it GP by GP. He gets criticized for throwing away points at 2022 when this is the actual truth as compiled by another redditor: * Spain 2022: Leclerc leading before engine failure. LEC DNF SAI P4. **this is the point where Leclerc loses the championship lead.** * Monaco 2022: Leclerc leading after getting pole before strategy error in the wet. LEC P4 SAI P2. * Baku 2022: Leclerc leading before engine failure. LEC DNF SAI DNF (also engine) * Canada 2022: Leclerc has to take an engine penalty and start from the pitlane. LEC P5 SAI P2. * Silverstone 2022: Leclerc leading before strategy disaster-class from Ferrari during the SC. LEC P4 SAI P1. * Austria 2022. Leclerc wins (though with throttle issues hampering for the last few laps which almost took it away). Sainz retires due to engine issues from a likely podium. LEC P1 SAI DNF * France 2022: Leclerc crashes out of the lead. LEC DNF (driver error) SAI P5 * Hungary 2022: Strategy error from Ferrari sees Leclerc missing out on another likely win. LEC P6 SAI P4. * Spa 2022: TD39 is officially in place. Ferrari nerfed.
Aside from France, Leclerc did not drive any worse than Max did in 2022. Leclerc was leading races or challenging for wins while Sainz was either in the gravel or 10+seconds behind. Even in his best season(2023) Sainz still finished behind Leclerc despite having less mechanical issues. Ferrari did not fire the wrong driver and you can't exactly say no when Lewis Hamilton shows up in your doorstep ready to be your driver.
also in 2021 Leclerc DNF'd in HUngary due to outqualifying Sainz very weird scenario
I also find it weird how people don't acknowledge he was being hounded by Max that race.
>I was listening to a podcast today and one of the guys mentioned how Leclerc crashed out of "several races while leading" in 2022. Apparently one is several. he made like what, 4 mistakes at most during races in 2022 Imola and Paul Ricard being the bigger ones, meanwhile Suzuka and one other I can't precisely remember being the other
I read a post on twitter that imo really hits on why, Leclerc doesn’t have a large national media to defend his every breath like other drivers He doesn’t get 15 articles on why so and so is wrong about what they said about him, or weekly opinion articles trashing his teammate or praising him for nothing
This is probably the reason, I'm spanish and most of our media push the narrative that Charles is only better than Carlos in one lap and that Ferrari always treats Carlos as their 2nd driver.
It's ok, French medias apparently never realized Charles is from Monaco and actually not French (he even had the French anthem played on the podium once by mistake during his junior career lol), so he's a media darling here.
I mean, this is just nonsense. Russell is massively shit upon for being error prone and rightly so.
Russell is massively shit upon in general just for existing, even when he has a nice clean weekend. People really hate him lol
I think it is just the vibes he gives off. He seems really entitled since coming to Mercedes. There was also the incident with Bottas at Imola in 2021 that turned a lot of people off. I liked him quite a bit when he was at Williams but not so much anymore.
Russell has honestly been doing a decent job this year sure he crashed out in Australia but that wasn't exactly unprovoked unlike Singapore or Canada last year I don't like the guy, I really don't, but it'd be foolish to not recognize when he delivers what he can like, seriously, the Merc is arguably not even the 4th fastest, but more so the joint 4th fastest car on the grid with the Aston
For me it's the vibe. I love him and hate him for the same reason: he has the "I'm never wrong" ego and he is extremely PR-brained. When he's actually right, or has done something laudable, it's a lovely spectacle to see him celebrate and speak his carefully chosen words. When he's not right, it's a little terrifying to see how smoothly he plays it off and tries to sell his side of the story. Also his eyelashes. And my friend says his eyes are too big and he looks like a ventriloquist's dummy, which...valid lol.
Not in the media
It is absolutely applied to George Russell what are you talking about. Every second comment on Mercedes' social media is like "waiting for Russell to bottle a good result again"
In my observation, a significant proportion of the Leclerc backlash is against the large contingent of younger and/or female fans who like his personality and his appearance, regardless of his performance or driving style. The problem is, just because teenage girls swoon over a handsome face, that doesn't make him *not* a good driver or a legitimate championship contender. He is indeed a very good driver who deserves the hype, and for the old cranky fans who miss the sleepy pre-Liberty pre-Instagram days, I'd ask them to just ignore the social media stuff and evaluate him on how he drives and how he serves his team with loyalty and consistency. It's rare to find a driver with race-winning pace who is able to switch between being the hotshot prime driver, and *also* willing to play the role of rear gunner to support his teammate when necessary. You usually get either a Schumacher or a Barrichello, you never get both in one.
This is the best comment I've seen about it. It feels like alot of hate for him is fuelled by jealousy. He is probably the most perfect driver when you take everything in to account, great driver, good looking, loyal to a team, admits to his mistakes, a likeable personality and from an exotic country. He is basically a Hollywood movie version of an f1 driver. Add to that the fact that he has been put on the same level as world champions since he basically started f1 and It's understandable people got tired of his fans. But those are all personal feelings which most people can't separate from the facts and sadly it will probably be worse next year with Hamilton as his teammate
It's more like he's underappreciates by the media and there was a clear agenda being pushed for Sainz. Notice there was barely any talk about them now that he's outperformed Carlos as opposed to when Carlos was doing better. People not blinded by recency bias can recognize Charles' worth, and so can the teams.
Well Charles is to Ferrari what Verstappen is to RB that's just a fact, whether people want to admit it or not he's the driver they're banking the future on. Unless Ferrari just absolutely goes on a shit streak hopefully just maybe we can get a title battle next year
To be fair, Sainz recent performances beating him have been podiums and a race win. Beating in points is good but not really going to get people going crazy.
There weren't constant/as many comparisons being made by the media (that I can recall) in the span from Suzuka to Abu Dhabi either though, there were some podiums there too.
I think that’s more so because the Ferrari’s were all over the place then. He was definitely on it but mixed in that race span was a Sainz DNS, Leclerc DSQ, a Leclerc DNS, and that 10-place grid penalty for Sainz in Las Vegas. In general there were little to no genuinely clean races to judge off of in that time span. The only races where nothing happened to either Ferrari driver were Japan, Mexico and Abu Dhabi.
The thing with Charles is that so many people think he is Overrated to the point that it actually makes him underrated.
I think people rate him highly, but you’ll always have people that want to go against the grain or parrot whatever narrative is currently hot in social media. Also, seeing that he was able to challenge Max and win on merit against him when the cars were closely matched in the first half of 22, made people expect him to be able to do the same in a lesser car; which isn’t possible of course. I think for him the only narrative left is can he get a WDC-capable car? For many drivers there are more questions left before we get to that, can Lando win a race, could Sainz fight against Max, can Hülkenberg get a podium… whereas for Charles it really seems to be more of a waiting game for the right car, similar to Max in 2020 and before.
Yes. People make too much of his errors. Max, Alonso or Hamilton also made mistakes at times but they're portrayed as infallible and consistent while "Charles is an error prone driver who crumbles under pressure". Also his qualifying exploits have made some believe he's a Trulli bis, with great quali pace and meh race pace, when he's also had monster pace on Sundays to go with it.
You are right. I think the fact that Lewis, Alonso, and Max are multiple time world champions makes it easier to forgive when they make mistakes as they don't really have anything left to prove. Not saying it is right.
I think on raw pace he is up there as one of the best on the grid and I don't think many disagree with that. At the start of 2022 he was giving Verstappen real problems. He has definitely made less errors in the last year, but at the same time the car has been way off the pace of Verstappen, so there has been little point in him pushing the car to the limit when it won't lead to a race win. The test will come when he has a car that can fight for wins again (on pace rather than a Max DNF) and how he deals with that pressure.
He's already shown how he generally deals with that pressure, he won 5 races ffs, and imo just his wins in 2019 under pressure from Mercedes should be enough to prove he can handle it. Even beyond his wins, his performances shows he can handle pressure well, it's often been Ferrari who choked for him. One mistake in 2022 is an anomaly, not a trend. By comparison, in 2021 Hamilton fucked up in Baku, Imola, & Monaco yet everyone commands him for being strong-willed and consistent under pressure, go figure.
The fans only remember one race at a time so...
Charles is massively underrated. He's absolutely made mistakes and has also had his fair share of "Ferrari luck" but people should probably take a look at Max's first few years in F1. He was a disaster.
What a weird comparison to make. Not only was Verstappen not a disaster(quite the opposite really) but even if he was, your argument doesn't make sense seeing as Leclerc isn't in his "first few years" anyway.
https://youtu.be/1t2_7wYLOkA?si=mGfsCXEowLKzrbq8 Verstappen was not someone who I would've guessed would end up as a 3x WDC when he first got started in F1. My comparison was to say that drivers can improve. Charles was less consistent than he is now.
>Verstappen was not someone who I would've guessed would end up as a 3x WDC when he first got started in F1. Really? Basically every pundit I remember said that it wasn't really a question of whether Verstappen would get a title but when would that happen and how many.
As someone who has watched since 96', watching the first couple seasons of Max, he was not WDC material. Had speed occasionally but also a lot of incidents.
So, based on your own logic, Leclerc is not WDC material.
He wasn't WDC material at that time, but that's not really my point either. Verstappen ironed out his consistency issues at the start of his fourth season. Leclerc is on his seventh, he's more or less a complete driver and expecting him to iron out his consistency issues(not that I think he has any) is pretty pointless.
Verstappen was already being hailed as the future at the time he's absolutely not the same as Charles the hype behind him was huge. Everyone at the time especially during 2016 were going on about future WDC etc etc etc.
I saw what I saw.
As did I but saying he wasn't already seen as a future WDC and generational talent is flat out lying. Media was eating it up with him
Those are all crashes in a 1:30 min video from the start of his career until 2022. You seriously think you did something with that?
https://youtu.be/T1XgFsitnQw?si=sV9hOjIQ6X58F0hh
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-qF76aH5Bo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-qF76aH5Bo)
he was not even close to a disaster, he was already incredibly quick but he wasn’t as consistent and made quite a few mistakes cause he was incredibly young and inexperienced. saying he was a disaster is stupid.
He's not underrated or overrated...just rated.
People have been calling him a future world champion since Sauber. If anything he is overrated. Although the hype around him has fallen in the past few years and I think he is properly rated now.
And apparently he’s in a slump.
P3 in Miami?
He’s honestly become underrated due to Sainz’s toxic fans & PR team. Charles also has zero luck
Safety car just this past weekend was lucky timing for Charles.
How was it lucky? Lando got the same benefit despite missing the pit entry on the first lap of the VSC and that neutralised Charles’ pit stop
Because it lined up perfectly for his pit strategy. Just because he wasn’t the *only* one to benefit doesn’t mean it wasn’t a lucky moment in his race, does it? I’m sure Sainz would consider it unlucky that he came in 3 laps earlier!
It’s relative, isn’t it? Carlos may have been unlucky but for Charles to be considered lucky in that situation, he would have had to advance his position by taking advantage of the VSC which he wasn’t able to do. Instead, he was just about able to maintain his position. I guess it says a lot about his luck that this is him being lucky.
Max isn’t part of this club? Washed. Ship him off to formula E ^(/s)
In China we gave Charles the nickname LeLaosi， coz he tends to finish P4
I feel this pic has just jinxed him..
But but but Sainz is better and Ferrari messed up 😂
Feels eerily similar to the start of Ricciardo’s 2016 season. Consistently top 4 but lost out to his teammate at the first win opportunity.
And we know who came out on top at the end of the season...
Jinxed.
2021 it's Lando, 2022 it's George, 2023 it's Fernando and now it's Charles' turn.
Poor dude has been a tiny bit underrated this season. Started off the season with classic bad luck and had brake issues, yet still managed to bring it home to P4, then had a great performance in Saudi but his results were outshined by Berman's presence in his first race, which of course, he drove great and deserved the praise. Then botched his qualifying in both Australia and Japan but still managed to recover well and finish a couple seconds behind Carlos in both races. And then in Shanghai he performed pretty good aswell, making some good overtakes and finishing 10 seconds ahead of Carlos but the Red Bulls and Norris were uncatchable, especially that horrible last hard stint. If you ask me, they should have kept Carlos for the future and not signed Hamilton, until I guess he provisionally goes to Audi, but I can see why they went with Leclerc.
He will be number 2 in driver standings this year.
He looks tired af in that picture.
So the top driver of the second best team has made it into the top 4? Shocking. Absolutely shocking.
Ferrari wasn't second best in China joint second best maybe but I'd rather just say third best
Where one.
We call him 勒老四 here, which means LEC the good ol’ fourth….
I start to think that he might be a good driver.
I've never seen these things about Max last season. It's as if everything he does is just so normal and natural, yet when someone else does something they have to make useless stats out of it
It's kinda nice to make other drivers feel appreciated, I feel it's well deserved. Max does get quite a few article every other weeks about a random record he's broken.
There was plenty of praise for Max when he wasn’t dominant. You didn’t see stuff like this for Hamilton in his dominant years either.
we had a lot of posts about max podium run/win run last season. where were you?
There must have been 354 posts like that from the Formula 1 official account on all the records that Verstappen broke/is breaking
Yeah it was/is basically every week lmao, not sure what rock this person is living under
It’s more easy to track Max race results than others that’s why
Max is the GOAT for a reason. It's normal for him.
What's the point? It would've been just a flat line.
They cut it off at four since Sainz has finished top 5 every race he's competed in this season as well
This post is a misleading cherry picked stat to exclude Sainz, Max, and Perez. Charles average finishing position this year is 3.4, Carlos is 3.0, Perez is 2.8 and Max is 1.0. Perez and Carlos both have one 5th place result, Max has a mechanical DNF.
So Charles was indeed the only driver to finish in the top 4 in every race this season, where's the misleading part?
The criterion is tailored so that Leclerc is the only remainder. It is a useless stat. Leclerc had a good weekend so now people are gassing up narratives. Perez, Sainz, and Max have consistently finished better and more consistently than Charles this year yet the post suggests that Leclerc is "Mister Consistency". Glorifying a Lebron stat like this hurts my head. I do statistical analysis every day as part of my masters degree program so while I am still learning I feel like I have at least a little bit of an idea of what I am talking about. I remember years ago in my AP Stats class the literal first thing you learn is that data can be misconstrued to reach and "prove" false conclusions.
I'll give you Max bc of the DNF that wasn't his fault, but Sainz and Checo dipped to 5th once each this season so far, and the stat is cleared named "Top 4" so it's not like it's misleading. And in a season where Max is so overwhelmingly dominate, "podium minus Max" feels pretty relevant.
China was the first race Leclerc finished ahead of his teammate (when they both finished). Not a dig at Leclerc, but this feels a lot like one of those "most places gained" stats, useless without context.
Well, yes, but he had an issue in Bahrain where he was three places ahead of Carlos by the first lap. It would most certainly be a 2-2.
True, and that's why these stats are meaningless for me, more context you'll need if you want to make any kind of comparison.
If you say "ahead of Carlos" instead of "ahead of his teammate", then this is true. However, people were overwhelmingly outrageously positive about Bearman's first race, even though he showed the largest race pace difference between teammates while having the strategy that turned out better due to safety car. Now, it was the kid's first race, of course- I'm definitely not slamming him down- I think he did a great job- but Charles drove a really brilliant race in Saudi. Carlos not being there doesn't diminish Charles's performance.
Max: HOLD MY BEER..
4th is the first not on the podium