If 2024 was a year when Ferrari made it clear exactly how much Charles Leclerc means to the team – signing him to a new contract and leaving Carlos Sainz exposed when Lewis Hamilton became available – then he too showed how much the Prancing Horse means to him.
The disappointment at Ferrari of losing the constructors’ battle to McLaren in Abu Dhabi on a day when Leclerc had risen from 19th on the grid to third – surely one of his most impressive F1 drives – was etched on his face in the paddock post-race.
Like Lando Norris, Leclerc could have been champion this term but for his team not providing him with the best car package. After all, from the summer break onwards he scored the most points of the whole pack (179 – four more than Norris and 19 over Max Verstappen).
Leclerc’s main problem was that Ferrari went off the boil in car performance terms with its floor update introduced at June’s Spanish GP, which robbed him of confidence in the fastest corners. But at Spa, in the wet or dry, Leclerc was seriously impressive. He scored brilliant wins at Monza and Austin once the season was going again and Ferrari’s recovery was on.
Leclerc ended his Monaco hoodoo and also delivered statement victories at Monza and COTA during a superb year
Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images
At the start of the year, 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 performance. But Leclerc rallied and Sainz’s run proved unsustainable.
Leclerc’s 33-lap stint at the Italian GP where every lap was within a second earned headlines in his fantastic win there, but it should not be forgotten that he was also great on another one-stopper back in China. This tyre management element of his game is often overlooked, around all that qualifying wildness.
There was less of this on display overall in 2024, although his Bahrain, Australia, Singapore, Mexico and Abu Dhabi qualifying errors were costly. Austria was a messy one overall and at Imola and in Mexico he had race offs too. That Las Vegas radio outburst was weird. But perhaps his biggest mistake was assuming he’d get the lead back in Baku when Oscar Piastri attacked.
In a year where he deserved the plaudits for his brilliant racecraft, his qualifying record against Sainz (17-12…
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