Charles Leclerc, Ferrari’s choice over 2007 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen, has advanced his career in F1 and made his way to spot light.
Sebastian Vettel, four times world champion, will be challenged within the Ferrari by his new team mate Leclerc. The latter is expected to give hard time to the F1 elite driver Vettel as Ferrari will launch him this season. He is also expected to be one of the title contenders along with Verstappen, Hamilton and Vettel.
Leclerc performance in pre-season testing has advanced the expected notions of giving a potential competition to his team mate. During pre-season testing their fastest track times were only at a difference of 0.01 seconds. The overall performance of both Ferrari drivers remains competitive to each other.
However, Ferrari intervened to tackle the expectations from Leclerc and how his competitiveness will generate in-house battle. Mattia Binotto, who replaced Maurizio Arrivaben as team boss, has declared the team priority. He was clear who would be the choice and said that in “particular situations our priority will be Sebastian”.
Binotto says: “When you have your intentions clear from the start, you do not make mistakes when you may have an ambiguous situation.
“The two will be free to fight. We will not ask Charles to be slow or Sebastian to be fastest. We need both of them to run to the maximum.
“But if there any ambiguous situations at the beginning of the season, Sebastian is the one with more experience (and has had) many years with us. He already won championships so he is our champion.”
Leclerc has been very careful about his advancement at Ferrari. He didn’t sparked any controversy but he didn’t shy fabout his ambitions at Ferrari.
“Obviously I will be happy if I get used to this car as quickly as possible, and that I’m straight on the pace,” he says. “I’m realistic, too. It’s only my second season in F1. I have a lot to learn, and there is a long road ahead.
“I can’t hide that I’m pushing to be as ready as possible for the first race, and if Mattia has the problem to manage two quick drivers, then it’s a good sign for me.
“But for now I’m just focusing on myself, trying to improve every lap I am doing in the car. It is a top team, and there are procedures that are quite different to the team I was in before. There is a bit of adaptation.”
