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How Hamilton joining Ferrari will undoubtedly shape Leclerc's F1 future
Charles Leclerc’s position at Ferrari as team leader is at stake. If it were any other teammate under any other condition, his role as Ferrari’s title contender and lead driver would not be in jeopardy. However, the Italian team’s management went after seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton… And got him. And this move may very well define Leclerc’s future, not only at the Scuderia, but in F1 altogether.
That Ferrari signed Hamilton has obvious economic ramifications that tell their own story, not only in the revenue that the Briton will surely mean for the Italian marquee, but also in terms of the salary gap he will hold over Leclerc, is clear.
But sportingly, it is very telling as well, and if one were to read between the lines, it could be interpreted that the #1 at Ferrari may indeed be the driver with #44 on his car.
Why Leclerc should be worried
Ferrari's new Technical Director Chassis is former Performance Director at Mercedes, Loic Serra, who was rumoured to be a major driving force behind Hamilton’s decision to leave Mercedes, and as such is in charge of leading the work done on the Italian marquee's 2025 contender, currently dubbed project 677, supporting the foundations laid prior to his arrival, by Diego Tondi (Aerodynamics), Fabio Montecchi (Chassis Project Engineering) and Marco Adurno (Vehicle Performance), under the former technical leadership of Enrico Cardile.
According to reports from the Italian branch of Motorsport.com, nevertheless, the Frenchman is already making fundamental changes, in terms of the cockpit position being moved further back to help improve weight distribution, also making the switch to a front pull rod suspension, following McLaren and Red Bull's approach so far.
Serra, using his tyre performance knowledge and experience, having worked for Michelin in the past, and being instrumental in Mercedes's excellent tyre preservation levels during their dominant years as well, also looks to change the way the car will interact with the 2025 Pirelli tyres, expanding their operating window and widening their range to work across all conditions.
How deep of an impact has Serra had on the 2025 car? While in October, following the Frenchman's start at Ferrari, reports from La Gazzetta dello Sport pointed to Ferrari's 2025 contender taking the SF-24's philosophy to the extremes, after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, team boss Frederic Vasseur contradicted the reports by the Italian journal to media present including GPBlog saying that "[the car] next year, it's a new project," changing the narrative substantially just two months after Serra joined the Scuderia. This will in turn level the playing field somewhat between the Monégasque and the Briton.
While Hamilton will have to adapt to the Ferrari procedures and engine, the car may actually suit him a whole lot better than the past three Mercedes that the seven-time world champion drove in the current ground effect era, which reportedly he and Serra agreed were conceptually flawed while still collaborating in the German team’s ranks.
Frederic Vasseur has a history with Hamilton that dates back nearly two decades with the Maranello-based team’s chief occasionally reminiscing of the time he and the Briton worked alongside each other at ART GP, winning back-to-back titles first in F3 Euroseries (now F3) in 2005, and then in GP2 (now F2) in 2006, with Hamilton confessing then to the Frenchman his hopes of driving for Ferrari in the future.
After 20 years almost both men will be reunited and those dreams will be materialised, and the momentum Ferrari has, not to mention the confidence in the lessons they’ve learned committing to a new concept in the last year of the current regulations, speak volumes as to what their ambitions for 2025 should be.
The Scuderia has the winds at its back, it is now a matter of treading the path. A path that with all the current circumstances at play seems to bode well for Hamilton, further increasing the difficulty of the challenge that lies ahead for Leclerc.
What can Leclerc do?
The Monégasque for the majority of his tenure at Ferrari showed very little progress, which is probably why the Italian marquee went after Hamilton in the first place. From silly crashes to a myriad of grey performances and inconsistent results, the Italian team’s management must have felt a change in dynamics was due.
After trouncing Sebastian Vettel during their time together, Leclerc struggled to soundly beat Carlos Sainz, falling to the Spaniard in their first season together, even. So it was time to give the Monégasque a real challenge and see if he would rise to the occasion or crumble under the weight of it. And rise to the occasion he did.
2024 saw the best version of Leclerc yet, consistently performing and bringing home a good haul of points more often than not, and coming out triumphant on his and Ferrari’s home soil as well, with his Monaco and Italy Grand Prix wins.
Not only that, in the moments when the Ferrari was not capable of winning, he was there or thereabouts. His Zandvoort podium comes to mind, as does his drive at the season finale in Abu Dhabi coming home in P3, having started P19. And one can’t help but wonder if the pressure of Hamilton’s impending arrival lit a spark under Leclerc after all.
Beat Hamilton and assert yourself as a leader, fall to the Briton and your Ferrari career may be short-lived. Ferrari wants champions in their race cars, as their dismissal of Sainz clearly showed. In conclusion, the Monégasque is the master of his own fate. It is up to him to prove not only to the team’s management but also to himself, once and for all, that he does indeed have what it takes to become an F1 World Champion. The clock is ticking and the pressure is on.
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