'We're doing something wrong': Is Leclerc tiring of faulty F1 Ferrari?

The timing is significant. Leclerc is only contracted to Ferrari for one more year after this season, and he is undoubtedly considering his options for the crucial next stage in his career: a deal that takes him up to his 30s, a time when he should be in prime form to challenge for the title.

Rumours abound after Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said last month that Leclerc was on his “radar”, as he negotiates a new deal with Lewis Hamilton for next year. There were unsourced reports that the Monégasque had been talking with the team, perhaps about a 2025 contract. It could all have been dismissed as a ploy to unsettle Ferrari, except that Leclerc has fanned the flames.

When asked if he had contract talks with Mercedes in Baku, he replied: “Not yet. Not for the moment.” The implication was clear.

 

Leclerc’s lifelong love of Ferrari

Drivers often talk about signing for a particular team being their dream. For Leclerc, there was no doubt. As a child, he and his father Hervé cheered on the Scuderia and, in the days before Hervé’s death from cancer in 2017, Leclerc told him that he’d signed to drive for Ferrari in F1 for 2019. It was completely untrue at the time but Leclerc did indeed sign a contract that saw him on the grid in a Ferrari in 2019.

Leclerc was at Le Mans to witness Ferrari’s victory after 50 years away, paying close attention from the pit garage and saying that he too would be keen to take part in future.

Leaving the team would be no simple decision, but Leclerc’s reaction to the latest in a series of setbacks suggests that he;’s tiring of the situation.

 

Ferrari’s 2020 engine settlement

Take the disastrous 2020 season, Ferrari’s worst campaign for 40 years. The team had been frontrunners in 2019, when Leclerc won twice and climbed to third in the championship. Then came the engine settlement after many months of suspicion over how Ferrari had managed to produce an engine that was noticeably more powerful than those of rivals.

Performance slumped and Leclerc finished eighth in the championship —‚ still five places higher than team-mate Sebastian Vettel who had 33 points, compared with Leclerc’s 98.

“I think it has made me a better driver for sure,” he said at the end of that year. “In difficult times I have found my determination in other ways, by focusing on myself, trying to improve, and even though [we are not fighting] for podiums or wins – we are fighting for lower positions – at the end it matters just as much for me.

“And then in terms also of patience: I don’t think I was a very patient guy in the past but now I have to be, in the situation I am in now, and I feel like I’ve improved on that too,”

That is the positivity we’re used to.

But that was only his second season at Maranello, having been heralded as ‘the chosen one’ by the Tifosi.

Since then, he endured another testing year in 2021, but with the hope of gaining an advantage in the 2022 reset caused by the introduction of new technical regulations.

At first, the season went to plan and Leclerc defined himself as a title contender by taking a 34-point lead over Verstappen in the drivers’ standings after just three races, but a string of errors — in strategy and from himself, as well as car failures, saw him out of contention by mid-season.

This year, instead of fighting back, Ferrari has gone backwards in the championship; leapfrogged by Aston Martin and under pressure from Mercedes too.

Once again, Leclerc’s ability to compete for race wins and podiums is being limited by inconsistency and issues that have plagued Maranello for the last two seasons – unreliability and tyre wear.

The former cost Leclerc a podium place in Bahrain, although car issues haven’t caused any retirements since,  but the latter has continued to be a problem.

“I always dreamed of driving for this team”

For a driver notoriously hard and honest about himself, it must be infuriating to see issues recur from race to race and season to season.

We’ve seen his fury when his own level has dropped below the high bar he sets, notably at the Turkish Grand Prix in 2020, where a crucial mistake on the final lap saw him lose places to Sergio Perez and Vettel.

In response to his engineers congratulations over the radio, he shouted: “I did a shit job. I did a shit job. I did a f***ing shit job. I am so sorry. I am f***ing stupid. As much as in Baku.”

As Leclerc contemplates which team can offer him a championship-winning car (and has a seat available) in 2025 — his eighth season in F1 — he’ll no doubt be wrestling with his faith and loyalty to Ferrari. Notwithstanding the frustrations, the passion of being part of the Tifosi still burns within him.

Listen to his words after he said that he hadn’t spoken to Mercedes “yet” for an illustration of his inner turmoil: “I love Ferrari, I always dreamed of driving for this team.

“These rumours don’t really affect me and I’m mostly trying to focus on what there is to do on the track, because we are not yet at the level where we would like to be. In 2022 and this year we did not take the step we wanted. We have to make up for that now.”

A final plea for a car that will let him win a championship with the team he loves?