In the paddock: Edd Straw

There are some who believe Charles Leclerc is too young and inexperienced to replace Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari. But he’s as ready as he can be

There’s an old saying in sport particularly apposite to 20-year-old Sauber driver Charles Leclerc: if you’re good enough, you’re old enough.

Since Ferrari’s growing impatience with

Kimi Raikkonen emerged last month and the prospects of Leclerc being promoted from the team’s junior ranks to the frontline dramatically improved, questions have been asked about whether or not the Monegasque is ready.

The evidence says he is. Emphatically. Or, to be more precise, he’s as ready as he can be.

Too many focus on what Leclerc hasn’t done. He hasn’t won grands prix, he hasn’t driven for a top team, he hasn’t fought for a world championship, he hasn’t finished higher than sixth in an F1 race. This is a pointless position to take in making a decision on Leclerc – it’s only really relevant if weighing up the choice to take Leclerc or a proven winner to lead the team immediately.

Most drivers had yet to win grands prix or fight for a world championship before they got their big shot in a top team. Instead, it’s what Leclerc has already done that proves he’s ready to have that chance.

The front of the F1 field is a pressure-cooker environment, one that’s impossible to simulate. Nothing can prepare you for the scrutiny, the mental challenge, the drain of a 21-race season when an off-lap, let along an off-weekend, gives rise to questions and doubts. But the closest analogue to it is precisely the situation Leclerc is in. The consistency of performances makes Leclerc so impressive in a part of the field where tiny margins can make the difference between points and no points.

He’s scored in five out of six races, and would have made that six out of seven but for his loose wheel at Silverstone. Leclerc is not a driver turning in flashy peaks every three races, he’s relentlessly banging in performances. And the mistakes, such as his trip through the gravel on the first lap of the

Austrian Grand Prix, have been rare.

He would go to Ferrari as Vettel’s wing man with a view to emerging as his long-term successor. Of course, things are never as elegant as that and it’s rare a team is able to align the eventual decline of an established star and the rise of a new one. So the strongest case against Leclerc might be that he will upset the established balance of the team.

But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. What is true is that we can’t be sure how Leclerc will respond to the unique pressures of Ferrari. Some default to the age and experience argument, but those are not the relevant criteria for judging Leclerc’s readiness. Nothing can fully prepare you for what awaits at Ferrari, all you can do is pass all the tests up to the point where you get thrown into the deep end.

Leclerc would be the second-youngest Ferrari driver in world championship history, behind only Ricardo Rodriguez. Furthermore, there have only been five instances of a driver racing for a team that won a race in the year concerned at a younger age than Leclerc will be next year – three of them being Max Verstappen. The others were Rodriguez in 1961

(which was a bit-part role and he didn’t score a victory himself) and Sebastian Vettel with Toro Rosso in 2008.

For the most part the youngest drivers in top teams generally go on to be successful. A glance through the top 30 instances shows largely successful drivers and only two – Zsolt Baumgartner and Corrado Fabi – who never finished on the podium. Most went on to win races, and there are plenty of champions too.

None of the above guarantees Leclerc will succeed if he is promoted. What it does prove is that you don’t need a hundred grands prix under your belt to thrive in a top team, further weakening the age/experience argument.

Leclerc has met every challenge presented to him so far. What’s more, he’s approached things in a methodical way, learned from his mistakes and got better as the season has progressed. That’s an approach that will serve him well at Ferrari.

Even in half a season, there are countless examples. Leclerc himself stresses that he looks closely at the negatives as he bids to tackle his weaknesses. There’s plenty of evidence of that this year in the way he dialled things back in qualifying after admitting he was“pushing way too much”, the overhaul of car set-up approach and recognising after the Chinese GP that sometimes the driver isn’t best placed to call strategy.

Leclerc has a mature head on his shoulders and won’t believe he has already‘made it’just because of his promotion. That, more than anything, will stand him in good stead if he is cast into the Ferrari maelstrom.

Should he race for Ferrari next year, there will still be things to learn and there will be the odd mistake. But it’s time to move on to the next learning curve. Sometimes you’ve got to step up to the next level to have the chance to prove you can cut it there.

It’s time. Leclerc is good enough, so he’s definitely old enough.

“YOU DON’T NEED A HUNDRED GRANDS PRIX UNDER YOUR BELT TO THRIVE IN A TOP TEAM”