How Leclerc saw off Vettel
Team boss Mattia Binotto seemed justified in dubbing Sebastian Vettel as the man to lead Ferrari’s charge. But the new boy in the other car has turned the tables
Sebastian Vettel started 2019 as Ferrari’s de facto number one driver, but ended it finishing behind Charles Leclerc in the championship. In between, Ferrari’s season rocketed between poor performance, reliability problems, stunning Leclerc highs, costly Vettel mistakes and rising tension between its drivers that reached a crescendo with them crashing out in Brazil. The underlying narrative through all of that was the shifting dynamic between four-time world champion Vettel and rising star Leclerc, and how Leclerc’s emphatic first season with Ferrari disrupted the status quo.
Team principal Mattia Binotto’s logic in making the more experienced Vettel the team’s “guide” to the title in pre-season was justified, but his faith, it turns out, was not. Leclerc accepted Ferrari’s stance, given his newcomer status within the team, and considered it his “job” to change Binotto’s mind. Now, Leclerc can look back on a job well done – two wins, seven poles (more than any other driver) and a set of results that the youngster says he wouldn’t have believed possible at the start of the year.
This was a season in which Leclerc did a lot of good work in wresting the balance of power within Ferrari away from Vettel. It was inevitably underscored by his impressive on-track efforts. For two thirds of the season, he was the superior Ferrari driver. It was only in the first seven races or so that Vettel had a definite edge, and even then he failed to replicate Leclerc’s peaks – Bahrain was Leclerc’s race until a late engine issue cost him a first win in F1, while in Azerbaijan Leclerc led the charge before a qualifying crash.
Leclerc’s qualifying form transformed from ragged to stunning around the time of June’s French GP. After crashing in Baku in April, he sustained floor damage next time out at Barcelona in Q2, which compromised his Q3 performance. He reckoned these errors were a legacy of his rookie year at Sauber, where he was always on the limit trying to progress to the next part of qualifying, whereas at Ferrari he had to learn to use the earlier stages of qualifying to build momentum and dial himself and his car in.
“There’s definitely been a few mistakes, and there’s a change of approach when you arrive in Ferrari,” said Leclerc earlier this year. “Last year, [I had to] give it all from Q1 to Q3, but as we’ve seen in Baku it was not very important to give it all in Q2. There were a few mistakes on my side. Now I’m looking forward to trying not to reproduce them and hopefully the better times will come.”
The better times did. Leclerc’s mindset gave him the ability to reflect on his errors and put in place countermeasures to avoid a repeat, leading to massive gains over the year. Races such as August’s Hungarian GP, where Vettel had superior tyre management and muscled past Leclerc late on, opened Leclerc’s eyes to the lengths he still had to go to in that department. It was no coincidence that Leclerc’s two wins after the summer break in Belgium and Italy, with Lewis Hamilton fiercely pursuing him in both races, were a result of Leclerc making his tyres last under extreme pressure.
Leclerc’s critical self-analysis is the single most emphatic element of his make-up as a grand prix driver that puts him on a trajectory to be world champion. Sometimes he is unfairly harsh in his appraisals. It is no surprise to see a driver who is still inexperienced making mistakes, but he called himself stupid on
“Leclerc did a lot of good work this year wresting the balance of power within Ferrari away from Vettel”
multiple occasions in 2019. That’s not a sign of emotional weakness, though; it indicates exceptional mental strength.
This is an area he has invested serious time in improving – with sessions ongoing in Italy this year – after identifying it as a weakness during his karting days. Such progress probably explains why, even when celebrating a job well done this year, Leclerc still finds himself searching for negatives.
“At the beginning of the season, if you had told me you will have seven poles and 10 podiums, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he says. “It’s definitely better than what I expected. Looking back, though, there are quite a few mistakes. So the target now is to understand them and to not do them again. I’ve still got a lot of work to do to get better. But I’ll put my head down.”
Condensing emotion under pressure takes serious mental control and capacity, and doing so while battling in an F1 car takes that to an all-new level. Being open to feedback underpinned Leclerc’s ability to deal with that challenge, and learn from his mistakes in the pressure-cooker environment of Ferrari. Generally, his errors have come under mounting stress. That Leclerc (eventually) largely excelled under pressure, whereas the more experienced Vettel struggled, is a significant argument in Leclerc’s favour in the context of predicting which of Ferrari’s drivers can stomach a title battle.
The back-to-back wins in Belgium and Italy – a “crazy” win at Ferrari’s home race “beyond all of my dreams” – helped Leclerc overhaul Vettel for fourth place in the drivers’ standings. This marked a changing of the guard of sorts, as both Leclerc triumphs coincided with poor weekends for Vettel, and also spawned the first serious signs of issue between the two drivers.
Leclerc’s pole in Italy came at the expense of honouring an agreement to give Vettel a tow on the final run in qualifying. He had his wrists slapped for that one. Then tensions grew in Singapore, where Leclerc led early on from pole but lost the lead and eventually the win to Vettel because of the strategies the team enforced upon its drivers – Leclerc’s confusion and anger over the team radio was not well received within Ferrari. In Russia, Vettel refused an order to move aside after a choreographed start in which poleman Leclerc gave third-place starter Vettel a tow and the lead to get him ahead of Hamilton’s Mercedes. Then, in Brazil, they collided while battling for position and both retired.
Through this process, Leclerc seemed to continue to learn how to play the game. Perhaps he spotted the chance to make the team his own, but he appeared genuinely contrite after his public criticism of Ferrari over the radio in Singapore, while in Russia he simply voiced his discontent before insisting the matter be discussed more earnestly later on. It smacked of a driver learning how to toe the line, and what may be at stake internally.
The reality is it was just another way Leclerc grew into a driver in whom Ferrari must feel comfortable putting its faith. His attitude and his actions were becomingly increasingly compatible with that
of a team leader. High-pressure moments were the making of Leclerc this year, almost as much as they seemed to be the undoing of Vettel. Such moments bring out the worst in Vettel, and he lost his cool too often in 2019. That did not help his confidence or his position within the team, even though a mini-turnaround in the final third of the season showed he is far from a busted flush.
For many years, Vettel’s selfishness was a positive thing and an immensely powerful weapon. It was part of the ruthlessness that brought him four consecutive world titles. But in 2019 it became a source of grief for Ferrari, whereas Leclerc has excelled since being thrown into the deep end. And Leclerc is not going anywhere, which means Vettel’s time as undisputed top dog is over, and he has no guarantee of a car tailored to extract his own brilliance – let alone one with an advantage over the opposition.
Given that this is restricting Vettel as a driver, and making him volatile under pressure, it risks being a damaging cycle. Italy, Russia and Brazil proved he is still prone to major, unforced mistakes. On the other hand, Leclerc’s bad days got fewer and further between as the season progressed. That is an indication of Leclerc’s rapid development within Ferrari: whether that be emotional control, qualifying approach, more aggressive driving or tyre management.
One of the underlying points when Ferrari reflects on its
2019 season, and what to do about its warring drivers, must be determining if both are strong bets for a title challenge next year should the car be up to the job. This is where Leclerc has surely succeeded in his pre-season goal of changing Ferrari’s mind that Vettel should be the priority.
The good days are important, but convention dictates that you win the title on your bad days. Leclerc was better across the board in 2019.
“Leclerc is not going anywhere, which means Vettel’s time as undisputed top dog at Ferrari is over”