Charles Leclerc Ferrari doesn’t deserve you

I was supporting him when he was everybody’s favorite after winning in Monza.

I was supporting him through the mess that were the 2020 and 2021 seasons.

I was supporting him when he showed he had the talent to fight for the championship if given a good car in 2022, but still he was never prioritised by the team.

I supported him when he stayed graceful despite the shit strategies, the mechanical issues, the team not listening to his feedback and deciding to develop a car for his, back then slower, teammate.

I will support him now that He’s driving a car he hates. We all knew this year’s car was gonna be Binotto’s last gift to Carlos… it’s an understeery car. Carlos likes it, Charles doesn’t. The car doesn’t merge with his driving style, he has to drive it like a fucking go kart to achieve anything (he accelerates on his exits, but with the SF23 that forces him to make mistakes). Still he’s only less than a tenth away from his teammate who feels at 100% with it.

Charles could not have been more honest. He doesn’t like the car, he doesn’t understand it to it’s full potential, but he’s trying and he’s working.

If that makes him washed up, finished, out of shape (yep sky Italy had the audacity to say he’d got fat… ) and makes his teammate the second coming of Schumacher… than fine, I’m gonna support him anyway.

Carlos was undeniably good last weekend, but there were plenty of occasions in the past when someone kept an opponent in DRS range to his benefit. It was a very good idea to do so, but it wasn’t a never seen before genius tactic.

Charles knew, from the minute he came behind in quali, that his job was going to be helping Carlos. And no matter that the Spanish driver won’t even acknowledge Charles’ help, but it was there. Carlos could manage his tires for the whole first stint with no pressure at all ‘cause Charles started on softs, jumped George at the start and then kept increasing his gap to Carlos, even if he had the pace to go faster.

Charles played the team player role yesterday. We have plenty of evidence, Silverstone 22, Monaco 22 and so on… that Carlos wouldn’t have done the same.

The driver I support admits when he doesn’t like the car, but still puts the work in and gets closer to his teammate with time. The driver I support agrees to being a team player ‘cause the most important thing is the win for the team. The driver I support doesn’t have a family that shits on Ferrari one week and then the following one jumps on the winning bandwagon.

The driver I support lives and breaths Ferrari. At this point I’m scared that essereferrari (being Ferrari, the ever present motto) will prevent him from being fully Charles.

I want him to be more selfish, angrier, but at the same time he wouldn’t be anymore the gracefull man we all know.

“You’ve surprised everyone ‘cause every single person I’ve interviewed was shocked by your performance. Have you surprised yourself too?”

“Yes, sure, clearly… this time also a lot later…”

He was then laughing ‘cause fans were screaming “Checo, Checo” and he started singing it too

“Yep, we were surprised and the surprise came also later compared to other weekends. Usually if you have a good surprise you see it in Q1 already, like in Austin. Here Q1 and Q2 weren’t great, while Q3 was kind of good. I’m not really happy with the lap, but even while not being satisfied we’re in pole, so it was a good surprise.”

“Did the strategy play a role in terms of how you used your tires in Q1 and Q2. Also was Q2 harder than Q1 with soft tires and the first set where you had issues with the front left tire?”

“Yeah, that’s right. There was especially a set in Q2 where I wasn’t happy at all with the tires. After that we put on new softs, the feeling was better but I had traffic during the lap and a not so good preparation of the lap (again because of traffic). So all of those issues contributed to the surprise effect… still I wasn’t expecting to improve my time that much”

“Will you be able to achieve another surprise on Sunday? That’s where lately you’ve been lacking and you need to prove something with the race pace”

“Yep, it’s beautiful to have a positive Saturday, but now we need to focus on tomorrow race”

“How do you feel about your race pace after having worked in the car for 3 free practices?

“Charles, great work in Maranello, but most of all incredible adaptability shown by you”

“I’m very happy ‘cause this year I haven’t been particularly comfortable with the car, but we’ve been working very hard, especially from the start of the second half of the season. We’ve learnt more about the car and we’ve pushed it a bit more towards my driving style… so I’m happy about the steps forward we’ve made.

https://x.com/_thescientist17/status/1703904419857805658?s=48

This is a video of a conversation that happened in the cool down room after the race between Lando and Carlos.

Lando: “Did Charles have a bad pit stop?”

Carlos: “No idea. He lost two positions”

Lando: “I jumped him in the pit stop”

Carlos: “We did a doppio (which means double)… it wasn’t my business”

It was your fucking business, ‘cause it’s thanks to the gap he created and the fact that he slowed the others down as much as possible that Carlos had a safe time advantage going into the pits.

He had no pressure, he didn’t have George right behind, the mechanics didn’t have to rush.

So, Carlos, it was your fucking business.

To whoever is gonna say it’s a matter of language barrier… please… these men have been speaking English for years.

“Can I ask if you’ve felt a bit sacrificed by the strategy during the first stint? Or was it planned that way?”

“It was fully planned. We had discussed it before. During the first stint the situation was a bit different then expected ‘cause we hade more pace than the Mercedes, I asked if we could change the strategy, but in the end we made the right choice because Carlos is on the highest step of the podium and that’s the most important thing. I’m obviously a bit sad as I would have liked a better result. The pace was there, but then in the second stint there was nothing more I could do… after Lewis and George overtook me my only focus was bringing the car home, I knew it was the end of my race”

“Were you also a bit unlucky? You were waiting for the safety car, it came, but then you had issues with the traffic in pit lane.”

“I don’t know whether I’d consider it bad luck or not. For sure it wasn’t the ideal situation for me ‘cause I was behind Carlos, but if I wanted to be in front it was up to me to do a better lap yesterday. Carlos was better and he deserves it. I knew how it was gonna be today and that I had to protect Carlos in the first stint.

Also those messages about keeping a gap of 3 or 5 seconds were planned and I think we executed the plan well.

(He then saw a, I believe, video of George and went “oh no George”)

But yeah, in the end we had a very good management of the race from a team point of view and that’s the most positive thing.”

“What does this victory, but mainly the car performance of this weekend mean for you?”

Whenever he’s behind Carlos it’s not because the car is understeery as hell and not to his liking at all… nope… he basically forgot how to drive and he feels the pressure of his unbearably faster teammate

Carlos’ mother liked a tweet saying that one thing Carlos has and Charles doesn’t is honor

I still have to understand what mouths Carlos has shut up… honestly this shit storm is only achieving the opposite… nobody is talking about the podium, everybody is talking about the pr nightmare this family is.

I loved Charles’ answer tough

My good mood is back. I love Charles with Fred (he was checking his pulse after the race)

This is why Charles is my fav, he could be out there throwing tantrums cause he wasn’t on the podium, he could have thrown a lot of tantrums in the past because of Ferrari strategia and he didn’t (Carlos se is surely doing so right now even though his son was on the podium today)

Charles love Ferrari, he loves tifosi, he loves racing.

He was so genuinely happy because of the love he received this week and because he had fun racing

Also if we want to talk about strategies that could have been better than for sure they should have pit a Carlos earlier, cause waiting two laps only allowed Checo to get closer to both Carlos and Charles… that way though Carlos would’ve probably lost the position on Charles.

So I cannot really see what he can complain about.

This is why I don’t like Carlos honestly. Instead of being happy about the podium (which was possibly the best he could achieve today) either him of his family will always start useless fights (don’t come at me saying that it was Carlos sr saying this and that Carlos has nothing to do with it… that man is literally managed by his own family in this business)

He said how amazing the whole week has been, with the love from tifosi (he wished they could take all of them on a plane to all the races) and how he was content with the way he drove today compared to how he was struggling on Friday.

Taking a walk through the city center and finding out they’re having a car show this weekend (sadly no Ferrari will be on show)

Why Carlos? Whyyyyy

You were being kinda unproblematic for once… and then you did this. I know Mattia is single-handedly responsible for  favouring you last year, but also remember he’s the one responsible for the understeery slow wheelbarrow of a car you are driving this year.

Sorry about the horrifying pictures this early in the morning. I hope Mattia stays at least a metre and a half away from Charles or else I’m afraid Fred is going to have to intervene and kill someone. I’m gonna leave you to your day with some beautiful pics of our  Monegasque prince being Ferrari golden boy and tifosi’s baby.

“Charles, it’s a shame ‘cause it seemed like you were on a good lap. Was the situation similar to what happened in Miami? Did you ask for too much to a car that sometimes answers to your inputs and sometimes does not?”

“Not this time. I still have to look at the onboards, but it’s nothing like Miami, I wasn’t doing anything different from what I normally do.

It’s a very difficult car to drive. It goes from a lot of understeer to oversteer in the space of a corner… and unstable conditions like the ones we had today make it even worse.

We need to get better quickly cause’ right now it’s almost impossible predicting what the car will do in the following corner.

We knew that turn 9 and 10 were not good turns for us and we focused on them, but we still haven’t found a way to make them better.”

“Is level of load you’re using the right one? Could you have tried different wings and levels of load to interpret the track better?

“The level of load we’re using is for sure unbelievable (I’d say more unexpected, but I’m trying to keep the translation faithful), but we know the different aerodynamic packages we have available and this is the best we can do with what we have. We must look forward and bring updates that will suit tracks with these characteristics better.”

“What race can you expect for tomorrow?”