Charles Leclerc believes Lewis Hamilton is becoming a member of Ferrari on the good time due to the place the crew is in its journey in direction of successful a System 1 world championship.
Ferrari completed a detailed second to McLaren in final yr’s constructors’ championship, whereas Leclerc himself scored probably the most factors of any driver after final yr’s summer season break. With Hamilton arriving from Mercedes to nice fanfare, his new teammate believes Ferrari was prepared for such an addition because of the way in which crew principal Fred Vasseur has obtained the Scuderia working.
“I believe Lewis is coming into the crew on the proper time,” Leclerc stated. “I believe Fred is a man that has a really huge power of preserving the emotional stage of the crew at an excellent stage, and we’ve been a lot extra strong on that within the final years.
“Clearly the truth that Lewis has joined the crew has been an enormous increase and has been wonderful in so some ways. However I really feel just like the crew may be very, very calm and really clear in what’s the course to work in and never getting too affected by all the pieces that is happening across the crew, and that’s extraordinarily necessary and that’s nice to see.”
Leclerc feels crew boss Vasseur (at left) has positioned Ferrari completely forward of Hamilton’s arrival.
Talking after driving the SF-25 for the primary time on the Fiorano check observe on Wednesday, Leclerc says he anticipated the rise in scrutiny at Ferrari this yr however it isn’t having an influence on his or the crew’s preparations.
“I haven’t been stunned,” he stated. “I believe Ferrari has at all times had lots of consideration across the crew. And naturally, this yr, it’s even larger as a result of Lewis is becoming a member of the crew and he’s clearly a legend of the game, so it’s regular that there’s much more consideration than there usually is. However let’s say that the traditional normal is already fairly excessive.
“Now with Lewis, all the pieces is sort of exploding and there’s clearly lots of protection and lots of requests and all of this. Nevertheless it’s a part of the job and I believe the crew within the background is doing a very good job as a result of as a driver, it’s not like I can really feel it that a lot.
“I can clearly see the craziness. We’re in Fiorano — we drove the automobile and I can see the craziness across the observe and that’s wonderful to see. I solely see the positives.”
You possibly can really feel the love and fervour by way of this video ❤️ pic.twitter.com/9yG3p3tPaE
— Scuderia Ferrari HP (@ScuderiaFerrari) February 20, 2025
Though Leclerc goes into his seventh season with Ferrari, he says the expertise and success of Hamilton gives an instance for him to try to observe, and that he’s been making an attempt to grasp how his new teammate works.
“It’s at all times very fascinating the primary few weeks with a brand new teammate, and particularly when your teammate is Lewis Hamilton,” he stated. “He’s achieved a lot; it’s tremendous fascinating, and it’s tremendous cool for me to have the ability to analyze how he truly works day-to-day along with his engineers. What are the feedback that he makes, what are the issues that he places explicit consideration on, as a result of clearly it’s been a really profitable method — he’s probably the most profitable driver in System 1.
“So after all, I’ve been trying and making an attempt to research and be taught as a lot as I can from Lewis in these first few weeks. It is vitally tough for now, as a result of we haven’t been with the identical automobile on the similar time on observe… however I can see a bit little bit of the traits of his driving fashion, and it’s actually cool to see and analyze. So it went rather well. We even have an excellent relationship and managed to spend fairly a little bit of time collectively, and we can’t wait to begin to race one another.”
