The Lewis Hamilton weakness that Charles Leclerc must exploit
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc
“Outrageously brilliant,” proclaimed Tom Clarkson of the Ferrari driver. “Blindingly quick,” Martin Brundle said. And let’s not forget the “no stooge”, perhaps the biggest compliment of them all, uttered by Eddie Jordan.
And no, they weren’t talking about Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari’s newest signing, they were praising Charles Leclerc and the Saturday pace that could decide the winner of Ferrari’s F1 2025 intra-team battle.
Lewis Hamilton v Charles Leclerc: Could qualy be the deciding factor?
This season Leclerc has a new team-mate as seven-time World Champion Hamilton has replaced Carlos Sainz in the Ferrari line-up.
Championship battles aside, or perhaps to be decided between them, it’s the team-mate rivalry that everyone is interested in watching how it plays out.
But it is one that could be decided in qualifying, not grands prix.
Although the big points are decided on a Sunday, qualifying sets the tone for that and not just the grid order. The driver who qualifies ahead often, as is the case at Ferrari, gets the preferred strategy.
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Saturdays, as well as the occasional Friday evening qualifying, just took on a whole new level of importance for Ferrari’s most evenly-matched line-up since Gerhard Berger partnered Jean Alesi in 1995. But back then, the stakes weren’t as high (the Tifosi – and I – hope) as they are today.
Ferrari will line up on the grid at the Albert Park circuit on Sunday afternoon chasing the maximum 25 points. Better yet, the perfect 43 as they look to kickstart a fully fledged championship quest.
But who will have the advantage? Hamilton or Leclerc? The driver with 104 pole positions and 105 race wins or the driver with 26 pole positions and eight race wins?
The answer potentially lies in their stats of the past three years, the period of racing ground-effect aerodynamic cars.
Since 2022 Hamilton, despite his records, has one pole position and two wins with the new cars. Leclerc has 18 poles and six wins. In an era of Max Verstappen and Red Bull dominance, Leclerc has still managed to ring the neck of his Ferrari albeit over one lap.
“Outrageously brilliant,” proclaimed Tom Clarkson on the F1 Nation podcast in 2023. “There’s two types of drivers – one who you have to push to be fast and then they crash, and the one’s that crash, so you have to get them to slow down. And he’s one of those. He’s blindingly quick and so mature and confident.”
“Leclerc I think is potentially, on an outright qualifying lap, the fastest driver out there at the moment, even including Max Verstappen,” Martin Brundle told Sky News last year. “He’s blindingly fast, tends to run into a few things he didn’t ought to from time to time and fly off the road, Charles, because he just drives so near the limit.”
“Charles Leclerc is no stooge,” Eddie Jordan insisted to talkSPORT.
As for Hamilton, applause after qualifying has been worryingly quiet in recent times with the most telling words coming from the Briton himself.
Out in Q1 in Qatar last year, he proclaimed: “I’m just slow, same every weekend. Car felt relatively decent, no issues, and not really much more to say… Who knows? I’m definitely not fast anymore.”
He went on to comprehensively lose his intra-team battle against George Russell, beaten by his compatriot in the points, the race head-to-head and the qualifying battle. He lost that 5-19. That marked only his second defeat in 18 years in Formula 1.
Ask any F1 personality, his third is on the horizon.
“I will be surprised if Lewis can match him in the qualifying,” Jordan said while David Coulthard equated it to a “footballer losing a yard [of pace] at football – they’re still very useful to the team, they’re not as useful as they used to be” and James Allen said qualifying “will be a worry for Lewis”.
A worry for Hamilton, but a weakness for Leclerc, who beat Sainz 14-9 in 2024, to capitalise on.
Whether it is strategy A, B or C minus Q, Ferrari’s strategy during a grand prix favours the driver who is best placed on the grid. After all, he’s their best bet for a top result.
While Leclerc hasn’t said much about Hamilton’s arrival other than the expected PR speech of welcome, happy to have you, blah, blah, blah, but behind the scenes the Monegasque driver has to be pondering and plotting how to beat Hamilton.
His future, and his reputation, depend on it. It could also be the pivotal battle that lays the foundation for whether or not the 27-year-old ever wins a World Championship.
Qualifying is the answer, or at least the biggest weapon that Leclerc has in his arsenal with the driver yet to lose a qualifying head-to-head – and he spent two years up against four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel.
If he can dominate Hamilton, get him on the back foot and questioning whether he is “definitely not fast anymore”, the power play swings in his favour. So too would the punditry.
In the build-up to their first race as Ferrari team-mates all the headlines have been about Hamilton and whether or not he can win his elusive eighth World title with Ferrari.
Leclerc needs to silence that, starting in Q3 this Saturday.
But it comes with a caveat – Leclerc had best do a very good job about it as last season Hamilton made up 68 positions in 16 races and only lost positions in four.
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