Charles Leclerc solidified himself as the face of the Ferrari Formula 1 team by securing the first victory of his career in the Belgian Grand Prix.
When Charles Leclerc was announced as Kimi Raikkonen’s replacement at Scuderia Ferrari last September beginning in the 2019 Formula 1 season, there were questions regarding whether or not he would be ready to make the jump to the top-tier team.
1997 Formula 1 champion Jacques Villeneuve even stated that four-time champion Sebastian Vettel would be in a position to “eat him alive” as the teammate to the 21-year-old Monegasque.
There were also questions about whether or not Leclerc’s relationship with Vettel would work. With Raikkonen, Vettel was always the team’s top driver, and Raikkonen was always willing to play the role that the team wanted him to play to help his teammate.
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So far, none of these questions have been answered with any form of a legitimate concern.
Ferrari, as a whole, have struggled this season, a lot more than many people expected them to, especially after the success that they had during preseason testing.
But Leclerc has proven that he was more than ready to drive for the Italian team upon his promotion. In just his second start driving for the Prancing Horse in the Bahrain Grand Prix, he dominated and was poised to win before an engine failure turned his 10-second lead into a third place finish.
He and Vettel are very close to one another in the driver standings. Vettel has done anything but “eat him alive”. In fact, their teammate battle has been one of the closest teammate battles in Formula 1 throughout the season.
But aside of some team strategy blunders early on designated to prioritize Vettel “for the good of the team”, there hasn’t been any friction involving Leclerc as it pertains to Vettel’s role, even though Leclerc has not taken on a Raikkonen-like role himself.
Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, once again, solidified all of this, and as a result, it solidified the fact that with Charles Leclerc, Ferrari have found their man.
After dealing with multiple instances earlier this season during which he surrendered late leads, Leclerc dominated the weekend from start to finish to secure the first victory of his Formula 1 career.
It was a well-deserved victory for Leclerc, who didn’t even get to fully enjoy it after losing close friend Anthoine Hubert in the Formula 2 race at the track the day before. Hubert was killed at the young age of 22 as a result of a horrifying crash, and Leclerc fully dedicated his maiden win to him.
Leclerc held off a hard-charging Lewis Hamilton to secure this victory, and he did it with the help of Vettel, who ended up playing a role that he is not at all familiar with playing.
Ferrari pit Vettel early, at which point it appeared as though they did so to get him out on new tires so he could pass Leclerc. He did end up ahead of Leclerc after they pit Leclerc, but Leclerc had far fresher tires.
Vettel was ordered to let Leclerc pass him.
Did anybody think we would ever hear Vettel being told to let his teammate pass him, and for the race lead, no less?
Vettel was then in a position to keep Hamilton at bay, which he successfully did for several laps, to allow Leclerc to get further up the road. Leclerc’s eventual winning margin of 0.981 seconds proved that Vettel’s actions were worth every fraction of a second he spent working on them.
Eventually, the 32-year-old German needed to pit for new tires, but because he spent so much time holding up Hamilton, he could not do so early enough to have a chance to make up positions. He ended up finishing in fourth place after starting in second with a solid chance for a podium result.
Did anybody think we would ever hear Vettel being told to sacrifice his own lap times and really his chance at a podium finish by fending off a driver solely to help his teammate?
To add on to that, Leclerc did not cave under pressure, which Vettel has done so often over the course of the least year since he earned his most recent victory in last year’s Belgian Grand Prix.
The first 12 races of the 2019 Formula 1 season proved wrong so many doubts about Charles Leclerc driving for Ferrari, and on so many levels. But it was race number 13 that definitively solidified the fact that Ferrari have found their man.