When Hamilton made his decision to move to Ferrari, it looked an inspired one, because the Italian team had ended 2023 strongly and appeared in better shape than Mercedes.
Despite Max Verstappen’s domination with Red Bull, Ferrari took six poles in the final 11 races of last season, and Leclerc three of the last five.
Ferrari narrowly missed out on catching Mercedes for second place in the 2023 constructors’ championship, and they started this season as the clear second-best team to Red Bull.
This strong period culminated with victory for Leclerc in Monaco, on the streets where he grew up and first dreamed of becoming an F1 driver. He had finally delivered a win he had threatened in both 2021 and 2022, only for circumstances to intervene.
“A combination of things made this win so special,” Leclerc says. “It means a lot to me to be racing at home, and home being Monaco – one of the most challenging tracks on the calendar
“Second, everything that happened in the past that denied us the win even when we were in the best possible place to do that. It was always very difficult to accept.
“As a driver, you never know when the next opportunity will arrive again on such a track, so it was amazing this year to finally make it.”
Since Monaco, Leclerc and Ferrari have been through a difficult phase, just as Mercedes seem finally to have got a handle on their car.
An upgrade introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix last month created problems, and for the last race at Silverstone the team took it off, and reverted the car to a previous specification.
It has rather spoiled what had until then been obvious, consistent progress by Ferrari under team principal Frederic Vasseur, who took over at the start of 2023. But Leclerc believes the team are still on the right track under Vasseur.
“Fred has two very big strengths which are very important in F1 – and especially in a team like Ferrari, where the passion is so high that in very good moments there are lots of emotions, but there are also very big emotions whenever we are going through a tough time,” says Leclerc.
“In F1, you need to be as flat emotionally as possible and Fred is always a little bit the balance.
“Whenever we have very difficult moments, he helps the team to be back at a reasonable level and not be too disappointed. And exactly the same when we win, to not be too high and bring us back down and tell everybody we’ve got to work because this is only one race.”
Vasseur’s other quality, Leclerc says, is “to put every single person in the condition for them to work at their best. What has helped us in the last year and a half is that we have had a very clear vision of what issues we want to address in order to be quicker.”
