Autosport Top 50 of 2024: #2 Charles Leclerc

If 2024 was a 12 months when Ferrari made it clear precisely how a lot Charles Leclerc means to the group – signing him to a brand new contract and leaving Carlos Sainz uncovered when Lewis Hamilton grew to become out there – then he too confirmed how a lot the Prancing Horse means to him.

The frustration at Ferrari of shedding the constructors’ battle to McLaren in Abu Dhabi on a day when Leclerc had risen from 19th on the grid to third – absolutely one among his most spectacular F1 drives – was etched on his face within the paddock post-race.

Like Lando Norris, Leclerc might have been champion this time period however for his group not offering him with the perfect automotive bundle. In spite of everything, from the summer season break onwards he scored probably the most factors of the entire pack (179 – 4 greater than Norris and 19 over Max Verstappen).

Leclerc’s foremost drawback was that Ferrari went off the boil in automotive efficiency phrases with its ground replace launched at June’s Spanish GP, which robbed him of confidence within the quickest corners. However at Spa, within the moist or dry, Leclerc was severely spectacular. He scored sensible wins at Monza and Austin as soon as the season was going once more and Ferrari’s restoration was on.

In the beginning of the 12 months, Leclerc had surprisingly been the weaker in Ferrari’s line-up. His struggles with tyre preparation in qualifying coincided with the bombshell to Sainz of his dropping for 2025, fuelling the Spaniard to new heights of efficiency. However Leclerc rallied and Sainz’s run proved unsustainable.

Leclerc’s 33-lap stint on the Italian GP the place each lap was inside a second earned headlines in his improbable win there, but it surely shouldn’t be forgotten that he was additionally nice on one other one-stopper again in China. This tyre administration factor of his recreation is usually missed, round all that qualifying wildness.

There was much less of this on show total in 2024, though his Bahrain, Australia, Singapore, Mexico and Abu Dhabi qualifying errors had been pricey. Austria was a messy one total and at Imola and in Mexico he had race offs too. That Las Vegas radio outburst was bizarre. However maybe his greatest mistake was assuming he’d get the lead again in Baku when Oscar Piastri attacked.

In a 12 months the place he deserved the plaudits for his sensible racecraft, his qualifying document in opposition to Sainz (17-12 head-to-head document from all periods, with a mean benefit of 0.115s, the closest between any team-mates this 12 months) and the competitors he had inside his personal group boosts his rating.

And there was stunning emotion too – on show most when he lastly gained at residence in Monaco.

How good Leclerc was in 2024, within the Ferrari star’s personal phrases

One of many key the reason why Leclerc obtained the nod over Norris for second place on this rating was his power in wheel-to-wheel fight this season: the one driver to supply Verstappen a battle throughout the Dutchman’s rise at Interlagos; his sensible, swooping go on George Russell at Flip 1 in China; his holding off of Piastri’s sooner McLaren at Zandvoort and in Qatar.

Storming across the outdoors of Russell at China’s Flip 1 underlined Leclerc’s racecraft power

Picture by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Pictures

Forward of the Abu Dhabi season finale, Autosport requested Leclerc what all that meant to him, in addition to to evaluate his 2024 season. Right here’s his reply in full.

CL: I all the time get pleasure from wheel-to-wheel. It’s all the time a really thrilling second of the weekend the place you’ve obtained to adapt to completely different drivers. In fact, you get to know drivers and also you adapt your driving model to it as effectively and clearly when tons is at stake, it’s the place you may take extra threat and that’s the place I get pleasure from it probably the most.

For instance, with our automotive [in Qatar, with pressure on in the constructors’ championship] clearly there was a bit extra threat taken simply because I knew that it was crucial for us to be taking as many factors as potential to McLaren. So, there’s additionally this a part of the story. If you find yourself preventing with one clear goal, you may afford to be a bit extra on the aggressive facet, which I get pleasure from.

Then trying again on the season, I feel it’s been very strong from the entire group. I feel there’s the efficiency of the automotive, which we weren’t on the stage the place we needed to be for the primary half of the season. The second half, we had been extra in keeping with McLaren and Purple Bull.

However as a driver, I really feel like trying again at this 12 months, there hasn’t been actually any missed alternatives, which within the different years, after I look again, there was all the time one or two races the place I needed to do issues that weren’t potential. And, by that, it was biting me. That might imply that I’d get zero factors in a weekend the place I might have gotten eight or 10.

Even when that’s not a lot, on the finish if you add this stuff up it makes a distinction and on a 12 months like this, I don’t assume I’ve left any possibilities behind. That’s the reason I’m happy with the season.

Though disillusioned as Ferrari got here up brief within the producers’ battle, Leclerc produced a number of moments of particular person brilliance

Picture by: Ferrari