The wait is over. The verdict is out. The issue is clear and Ferrari have etched with Charles Leclerc their long term future.
Even as some rumours have it that the driver has a clause whereby he can put an end to his affiliation to bundle out earlier than is stipulated, all of that seems theoretical and, less practical.
Why else would Charles Leclerc commit himself five further years with Ferrari?
That’s half a decade more with a team with which he’s already spent, if you did simple calculation, half a decade already.
Leclerc, who arrived at Ferrari in 2019 at the behest of long time Scuderia loyalist Kimi Raikkonen moving to Sauber, completed five years with the Italian team at the conclusion of the 2023 season.
Meanwhile, his teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. has finished three seasons on the trot even as it took the Spaniard his maiden year at Maranello to beat Leclerc; in 2021, Sainz, then new to Ferrari, scored 5.5 more points than Leclerc.
In such time, Leclerc has experienced a multitude of emotions, going from the joy of clinching a maiden podium, circa 2019 Bahrain to the unsurpassable highs of winning at Spa and Monza in his maiden year to putting his teammate under immense pressure in what was a well fought P4 at Monza last year to ultimately experiencing the unavoidable Ferrari dampness.
That’s something which stems from the immensity of sadness of losing.
While in 2022, he emerged runner’s up to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, who by then clinched his second world title, in 2023, which was just last year, Charles Leclerc braved an atmosphere of dullness in failing to win even a single race.
His teammate, on the other hand, went on to win at Singapore thereby becoming the only non-Red Bull driver to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix in 2023, a season that had been Verstappen-ed by Max.
At all these times, Leclerc, though faster and by some measure than his teammate in the qualifying battles, kept persisting despite rotten luck and bad decision making during several Grands Prix.
As a matter of fact, for no fault of his but purely due to car woes, he failed to start the race at COTA last year.
But underneath the surface of despair lay a grooving fighter who didn’t give up.
At the maiden Las Vegas Grand Prix, Leclerc waltzed down at Red Bull’s Checo Perez to execute brilliantly a late lunge to capture a valiant podium.
It’s the kind of driving that, believe you me he’d be quite prepared to do in 2024, as a brand new season is about to begin in a little over a month’s time.
But in all these years that have been marked with progress as also the predicament that germinates from not winning, what remains Leclerc’s central goal is winning a world championship with Ferrari.
To be honest, it’s precisely the thing that Michael Schumacher aspired to achieve ever since Ferrari desired one since the Jody Scheckter years.
It’s precisely the thing that Raikkonen achieved in his maiden year with the Scuderia family and the very ambition that Leclerc is wearing red for.
Elusive but enigmatic, winning a world championship with Ferrari is no easy target. It’s a dream laden with boundless possibilities.
Even as Leclerc is popular today, he’d be a star and a dazzling one at that should he achieve this sooner than any later and while donning the bloodshot red racing overalls.
But is it going to be any easy? Even before a lap for winter testing could begin, there are those who have already billed the 2024 season as the year where Hamilton will snatch an eighth world title. Mercedes seem happy with the response of their new possible world title contender.
Then on the other hand, Aston Martin with their new “Hyperfocus” theory have intensified their focus to attain more glory as a constructor for the season. Alonso, moreover, stressed that the new season will be even more successful for the British team than the previous year.
And having said all of that, make no light work of the Milton Keynes-based giant called Red Bull and their triple world champion, Max Verstappen. He’s in it, to win it.
Not bin it akin to how Ferrari throw away a race despite being in a winning position!
Of course, part of why the 2024 season is so exciting is because it could align Charles Leclerc with Whats hopefully a title contender: the S-F 24.
But while it’s driver has all the talent in the
world to win and with it, some daring, will this truly be the gut wrenching, ecstatic hell raiser for the others on the grid? Only time will tell.