The 2023 Monaco Grand Prix won’t be the happy homecoming Charles Leclerc was hoping for in the innocent days of the Formula 1 pre-season.
This time last season Leclerc took pole position for his home race and was engaged in what appeared to be a close battle at the top of the title table with Max Verstappen.
While that challenge ultimately fell away, there was optimism in late February and early March, before the 2023 season had started in earnest, that Ferrari could redouble its efforts to present Red Bull Racing with another genuine championship threat.
But in 2023 the Monegasque returns to Monte Carlo driving an SF-23 that is struggling badly for race pace, that is decisively behind Red Bull Racing in qualifying and that is already looking out for the count in the 2023 championship battle.
Despite the team planning some major upgrades to the car for next weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, there’s little optimism that the sport’s most famous team can genuinely challenge for the championship this season.
But as though all that weren’t enough, Leclerc is turning up to his home race with his future at Ferrari under a cloud.
Leclerc is under contract until at least the end of 2024, but the dire straits Ferrari finds itself in have led to enormous speculation that he could be on the move before the conclusion of his deal.
The rumours started at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in March, before which the Italian media had reported that Leclerc’s camp had already engaged Mercedes boss Toto Wolff in a discussion about a possible team switch.
Both Leclerc and Wolff denied ever having talked to one another about a potential partnership.
In any case, with George Russell potentially under contract and Lewis Hamilton signalling that he intended to re-sign, there wouldn’t be room for Leclerc in the German stable in any case.
But that’s been cast in a new light by news that Hamilton is said to already be in high-level talks with Ferrari president John Elkann about a move to the Scuderia next year, after his Mercedes contract expires at the end of 2023.
Ferrari is reportedly prepared to lose Leclerc in exchange for Hamilton’s signature.
Assuming the reports are true, it would be a remarkable turn of events for Leclerc, who has long been heralded as F1’s fastest driver, a future champion and the bedrock of Ferrari’s new era in the sport.
Hamilton is obviously far better credentialed and is markedly more marketable as a result, but it would be difficult to read such a play as anything other than a vote of no-confidence in Leclerc’s ability to step up into championship contention, at least in the next few years.
That alone, never mind Hamilton’s defection, represents a major ruction in the F1 grid.
WHY WOULD LECLERC HAVE LOST FERRARI’S FAITH?
Leclerc’s capacity to lead Ferrari to the title has been under question for many months already thanks to his tendency to write off cars on race weekends.
In the last two rounds alone, in Azerbaijan and Miami, Leclerc has suffered two qualifying smashes. He also crashed out of the Australian Grand Prix this year, and he famously crashed out of the lead at the decisive French Grand Prix around 12 months ago. His earlier career is littered with many more accidents.
The Monegasque’s propensity for high-speed crashes has long been part of his character. He’s arguably the sport’s fastest driver over a single lap, and he claims that mantle only thanks to the risks he’s willing to take in pursuit of every last tenth of performance available in his car.
Bur this season, with Ferrari struggling for title credibility and in a close fight with Mercedes and upstart Aston Martin, Leclerc’s tendency to bin his car is costing the team valuable points and even more valuable face.
Ferrari is fourth in the constructors championship, 18 points behind Mercedes in third.
However, it would be unfair to pin those characteristic crashes simply on Leclerc’s recklessness.
Ferrari itself must shoulder at least some, if not most, of the blame.
The SF-23 has some fairly obvious shortcomings relative to Red Bull Racing.
It’s not as quick in a straight line or in high-speed corners. It has wildly inferior tyre life in race conditions. It suffers from unpredictable handling, which saps the drivers of confidence and trust in the car.
It means a truly fast lap must be driven at or slightly over the expected performance limit. To extract a pole-worthy time from that entanglement of faults comes with significant risk. It’s hardly any wonder Leclerc is putting his car in the wall in these circumstances.
In a car like the SF-23, with all its problems, it’s not surprise some of those risky runs end in disaster.
“In some ways, this may be a reflection of his mindset when he is up against a car that is demonstrably quicker than him [like the Red Bull],” Ferrari senior performance engineer Jcok Clear said, per RacingNews365.
“It’s a sort of, ‘I’m just going to have the make the difference myself’. Of course physics ultimately catches you out.
“We’re not going to say to him: ‘Look, calm down, Charles.’ Over the course of the year, his qualifying is outstanding [and] that puts him in a very strong position for a lot of races.”
Leclerc’s crashes — this year and last year — are better seen through the lens of a driver clearly better than his machinery and eager to rejoin the frontrunning battle.
While it’s of course his responsibility to avoid the consequences of overdriving a Formula 1 car, it’s important to acknowledge that he’s being forced to exist beyond the performance envelope of his machinery in pursuit of bigger results that otherwise shouldn’t be available to him.
Ferrari’s underperformance can therefore be considered a true team effort between driver and factory.
WHY FERRARI WOULD WANT HAMILTON
That said, there are plenty of reasons Ferrari might be interested in bringing in the most significant F1 alpha of his generation.
While Leclerc is highly rated, he’s spent almost his entire career at Ferrari and is yet to compete for a championship. Without the opportunity to fight for a title all the way to the final race, it’s impossible to know just how good he could be.
If there are doubts about Leclerc’s potential for greatness, there are no such question marks over seven-time champion Hamilton.
The Briton’s reputation precedes him. He’s the sport’s most prolific pole-getter and race winner. He knows what it takes to prevail in a title battle.
Putting Hamilton inside Maranello wouldn’t just be a boost to the team’s performance, it would also give Leclerc and a strong and consistent bar against which to measure himself and ultimately aspire to.
It would also undoubtedly be an important opportunity for Leclerc to reconsider and hone his craft alongside one of the best ever to have raced.
There are other potential benefits beyond pure performance.
Hamilton signature would be a signal of intent that the team really means business when it comes to its rebuild into a title-winning force. Ferrari isn’t about to shell out a figure in the vicinity of $75 million just to let Hamilton bolster his superannuation; it’ll expect Hamilton to spearhead a championship challenge.
And then there’s the star power Hamilton would bring to F1’s most famous team, particularly in what is a rebuild era for Ferrari.
It’s never a bad time to sign someone like Hamilton, but the summary of such a move — assuming it’s true — is that Ferrari would appear to no longer have faith in Leclerc to do the business, at least in the short term.
If it did, it wouldn’t be reportedly stumping up big bucks to try to lure Hamilton away from Mercedes in the first place.
That in itself would be a major development in the driver market and in our understanding of who’s likely to play a leading championship role in the coming seasons.
