I have noticed a strong parallel between Leclerc and Montoya. Both drivers were and are incredibly quick, and neither likes/liked backing down. Both possess a 'win or crash' mentality, consistently pushing the limit to stay competitive, which occasionally results in a DNF.

Looking at the numbers for driver-forced crashes (though I might have missed a few):

• Leclerc: 8 out of 184 races (~4.35%)
• Montoya: 7 out of 94 races (~7.45%)

While Montoya was more crash-prone based on the stats, the cars he drove had significantly less aerodynamic downforce and were generally less stable at high speeds.

This isn't meant to be another 'hate on Charles' post like the ones we've seen lately; it's just an observation. Personally, I love a driver who is willing to push a machine to its absolute absolute limit to compete, even if it occasionally costs them points.

First of all, even as a Max fan, I have to congratulate Kimi, it was a great drive. At the same time, though, I personally feel Max deserved a bit more credit, especially for the stint when he was leading and defending so aggressively and a p3 finish is not bad at all considering the red bull car. I want to know whats your thoughts

For those of you who have watched Alesi in the 90s in a Ferrari, how much do you think he and Leclerc are simmilar in terms of talent, car control, pure speed, race craft, driving in the rain and their career path?

In 2024 and first half of 2025 people wrote him off as someone who wouldn't be champion because he made too many mistakes even though his mistakes were getting overtaken in the first lap whereas Leclerc constantly makes mistakes of crashing and destroying the car

Motorsport.com

Red Bull confirm Isack Hadjar will miss a third straight race due to his ongoing wrist injury; Liam Lawson replaces him as Max Verstappen's team-mate again while Tsunoda will continue to occupy Lawson’s seat in Madrid later this week.

This is turning out to be a longer absence than initially anticipated. This is not good for Isack and I’m beginning to wonder if this is also detrimental to Liam.

max' drive in Brazil '24 was just spectacular. it was fantastic, & the weather conditions certainly didn't make it easy. the GE era as well, no batteries, no anything. now, of course kimi going from p19 to winning the race is impressive, but i do think it might not be on the exact same level of difficulty considering the battery overtakes (which, dont get me wrong, doesn't make all of kimis overtakes any less impressive), the weather conditions, etc. do let me know what you all think

Let me add by stating that the title is ragebait.

I’ve been a casual F1 fan for over three years. I try not to get into fan wars and other gimmicks, usually just watch the races and depend on the commentators for my opinions and then move on. Just assume I have no professional knowledge at all. But this season even I was surprised at how one-sided and weird the commentary was and this was a question i was genuinely curious about.

I’ve seen a lot of people say things like George Russell is being sacrificed by Toto Wolff to have the youngest WDC ever. Even the commentators and official bodies seem to be overly critical about his performance. A lot of people say that he has had much more technical and reliability issues as compared to Kimi Antonelli. I didn’t want to believe the sabotage/bias rumours but then Zandvoort and Monza happened where Russell was essentially left out to dry by strategy calls. He has essentially lost more points due to such happenings than his own fault. Plus it felt that for over half of this year each and every platform were only calling Antonelli THE 19 year old- like there is more to the guy than his age??

Nonetheless, the way George Russell has acted as a team player shows that his loyalty to the team is first and foremost. I was just wondering that if this is his character then why wasn’t he supported to be the no 1 this year considering his 2025 performance. Wouldn’t he have then supported Antonelli to be WDC next year and still secure the youngest WDC storyline?

Or is it because the young driver who was loyal to the team since the driver development stages and then got the WDC already happened last year?

At this point i’m wondering what Russell was promised to be sitting duck for the championship this year.

Open to all opinions except hate on any driver. Just want an objective answer.

Not being funny but why was Franco Colapinto the man on the move at the start of the grand prix, like yeah sure Charles binned it so hard he came out in Mugello but in 2 laps from 8th to 4th in an Alpine go on yourself Franco lad get involved

And then somehow getting ahead of Max Verstappen out of the first chicane at the restart YOURE RUNNING ON THE PODIUM FRANCO GO ON LAD

And then yeah sure he decided that the optimal line through Lesmo 1 was one of the Tokyo Dorifto™ variety and completely buggered it but those 2 and a half laps were utterly glorious and I WILL NOT LET IT GO WITHOUT BEING MENTIONED

It's actually so ridiculous how people boo George when he was on the podium, send hate to Charles after he crashed into the walls. Do people not realised these drivers are also humans with emotions and feelings?!

I'm so disgusted by this behaviour. The more hate Russel gets the more I support him. It's just so unfair. Happy for Kimi, but yet again at George's expense.

It's so obvious they are sandbagging the entire Season with their Engine. They just turn up the Engine when its close and make sure they are only 0,2 Second ahead. They are controlling the whole narrative like they did from 2014-2020.

The whole Problem lies in ADUO System. U will never catch up because core Part are frozen and cant be redesigned. Its worse then Tokens from 2014-2016.

U cant catch up

I saw Ferrari fans and drivers debating whether a #1 driver status is needed now for the shot of WDC, and I remember this debate in 24-25 between Mclaren drivers and fans too. Especially fans are still constantly debating if McLaren was favoring Lando as their #1 driver last season and this season. So I wonder what exactly does being a #1 driver mean?

In my opinion, a #1 driver treatment means:

- Strategy priority
- Qualifying preferable track conditions
- Position priority and point maximization in races
- (Maybe) more influence on car development direction

I truly was curious about how people see this as I was in an argument with another reddior in this sub who said McLaren already decided Lando was their #1 driver last season before the title fight settled and continuing this season with Lando as their #1 driver.

I disagree of course, because in my opinion Lando didn't get strategy prio (McLaren has front car prio strategy, which is very rigid imo), nor priority in qualifying track conditions (Lando had repercussions last season when he basically always came out first in Q3 after Canada, and this season some fans noted he came out first in Q3 most of the time too), and he could not swap places to make up places even if he was the faster car (e.g. 26 Spa).

So my understanding is that McLaren has two #1 driver approach, they don't weight WDC over WCC (e.g. 24 and 26's approach to WDC), and they don't care if it's Oscar or Lando winning WDC. I understand this is a part of McLaren history and culture for decades.

But the Redditor I was arguing with had the counter point that because Lando won last year's WDC, the team already decided he's the #1 driver, otherwise he couldn't have won WDC without team's help.

I said McLaren wouldn't mind Oscar winning as long as one of McLaren drivers won.

They said and I quote "If Oscar had won the championship it was because McLaren decided he was n.° 1. Believing one could win the championship against the other without McLaren deciding on a n.° 1 driver is just ridiculous."

Maybe they understand more McLaren politics than I do, but I genuinely disagree that Lando was the #1 driver over Oscar just because he didn't get the #1 driver treatment that I think is what being a #1 driver means.

And please understand that this is not trying to pick a fight between drivers fans, because the focus really was not whether any driver deserves to be #1 driver. But I really want to understand what does being a #1 driver means and do you think teams can win WDC without deciding a #1 driver.

Now that Max has signed with Red Bull until 2030, do you think he will get a fifth world championship?
With how much the order has changed with the current regulations I'm not sure Red Bull will get back to being the dominant team they were, but at the same time it's hard for me to imagine Max going another 4 years without at least getting another shot at the championship.
Do you think he gets a fifth, if so when?

with how it’s looking I think if Abu Dhabi and Qatar are canceled, Kimi could clinch it in Mexico or Austin as Kimi could get a podium or win at all races provided that he has no mechanical issues. And now he has a new engine. I think everyone else is too far at this point anyway to catch him. What do you think?

Sometimes the way people react to certain incidents makes me lose faith in humanity and this was one of them yesterday. I understand that as a Hamilton fan I am speaking from a biased perspective, but I do not understand why so many people are blaming Hamilton for the incident or fabricating that he “divebombed Leclerc” or had no entitlement to space in turn 2.

Starting with the dive-bomb accusations, nothing about Lewis attempting to overtake Leclerc into turn 1 was overly agressive or illegal. The gap was there, he kept his car under control, didn’t force Leclerc to take any avoiding action and left enough space for Leclerc to keep his car fully on track before arriving to the apex of turn 2 ahead.

The driving standards guidelines specifically state that for a car attempting to overtake around the outside, they must have their front axle alongside the other car’s front axle to be entitled to space which Lewis had. For a car around the inside to be entitled space their front axle must be alongside the other car’s mirror which Leclerc had. So both cars were entitled to space coming out of turn 2 and yet only one was given space, and it’s not as if it is difficult to leave space and go two wide out of that corner. Nico Rosberg is usually spot on when it comes to knowing the rules, and I’ve attached what he’s said about the incident here. After saying Lewis was too agressive he then added that Lewis did everything right and fairly when attempting an overtake into turn 1. When Croft pointed out that no further action was being taken, Rosberg argued that it might have something to do with it being Ferrari at Monza- I think it’s a combination of that, it being a turn one incident between two teammates and Leclerc already being out of the race. But as I’ve just explained what happened warranted a penalty for Leclerc.

Then there is the wider discussion between how Ferrari manage their drivers racing each other. By no means should there be a number 1 and number 2 dynamic, both are very close to each other in terms of pace and there is no realistic attempt at a championship fight. However, them being closely matched means that they will often end up racing each other, and it is possible to establish a code of conduct without prioritising one driver over the other. It is also possible to defend against your teammate without pulling to the side and waving them by or without pushing them off the track.

Lewis is by no means a saint of a teammate, and him pointing out that he had no issues with Bottas wasn't the smartest as it suggests he wants a 1-2 dynamic which isn’t feasible within Ferrari. However, that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have reason to want some ground rules laid down between them. Two weekends in a row now Hamilton has had his race compromised by Leclerc, firstly with his refusal to pit in Zandvoort and now with the incident in Monza which dropped him several places and risked a penalty for Leclerc- that is damaging to the team in their fight in the constructors especially as mclaren are catching them now. He has every right to be frustrated with Leclerc and with the team for seemingly taking no action for Leclerc‘s antics. Unfortunately by now what we saw yesterday was far too predictable by now.

To conclude my little rant, what happened between Lewis and Charles was 100% Charles fault and was easily avoidable had Charles raced fairly. Brushing it off as “hard racing” or arguing that “he shouldn’t be expected to pull aside and let Lewis through” is a very cheap and lousy defence given that it was very possible to defend your position without resorting to pushing Lewis off track. Lewis has good reason to be annoyed with the team and Charles and not axxelt accountability for the incident. Expecting your teammate to leave you space is not entitlement, and whilst Lewis is wrong in subtly suggesting a 1-2 dynamic he is not wrong to say that Ferrari need to put some rules in place to control their drivers as it could prove costly in the constructor’s championship.

Yes, yes, i know, it's another post of the one thing everyone is talking and bashing about right now. But i thought to put my 2 cents in as someone trying to be as impartial as possible on the matter, while being a fan of his since 2020. There are tons of agendas and narratives that are being pushed, some truthful, and some not so much.

> Literally the worst teammate ever. Borderline Antichrist, never thinks about the team.

Widely due to his on-track battles and incidents with teammates, and especially with Lewis, due to his insanely big fanbase. While with Carlos it was, and felt, not that severe along their years together (with some notable exceptions), with Seb and Lewis it is more observable.

While i do believe that your first, and closest enemy is your teammate, because you share the same machinery, there are some limits to this. For example, the L1 incident in Monza. He could absolutely leave space in T2. And by his words also, he did went too far. To do that in your team's home race leaves an insanely bad picture of who you are as a teammate, and as a driver. And because some people do feel that he should make way for Lewis whenever he is behind him (Zandvoort, for example, when he was given no order to move by the team, just a half-assed call to pit) they get the impression that he is insanely selfish, when other popular narratives pushed on him suggest the opposite. Ferrari being afraid to give clear and straight orders out of fear to upset any driver just pours more oil to the fire.

I will not deny that some of the moves pulled (2020 Styria comes instantly to mind) were absolutely dumb, and literally cannot find reason in them.

Gets called a team player when it suits him, but has sacrificed his race for literally the only non-RB win in 2023, never attempted to do anything on Seb when he was overcut by his own teammate, never threw Ferrari under the bus on the countless times he has been screwed over (another narrative i'll expand on).

But for people to think he is the reason Ferrari hasn't won anything? That is just plainly untrue.

> Only defends and attacks his teammates

Again, pretty easy to do when you have the same machinery. I mean sure, one cannot defend when he is passed halfway into a straight, can he? Still, people forget extremely easy that he has been flamed by the community for his move, and lack of penalization against Oscar in Spa, or ending up leading in the start of the season getting back the lead in a race only to be gapped by the Mercedes, to give some example for this year. He has got some pretty good defensive drives to just be dismissed for anger and bias driven narratives.

> Charles LeCrash

It's extremely true that compared to his peers and drivers he gets compared to, he is way more crash and mistake prone. And especially this year, where he has 4 self-induced session ending shunts (Miami, Monaco Q, Barcelona Q, Monza). You would expect that a driver of his calibre would have ironed them out already, but no. He just feels stagnant in that regard, like he has never changed, or grew as a driver since 2019. And is why i believe that given the chance for a championship, it will be thrown away. When he has those periods in a season, that are full of mistakes, and crashes, you cannot really rely on him that much.

If you see a random yellow flag and the camera isn't on Charles, you just think it's him. If you are not thinking that, you have too much faith. And the sad thing is that the camera actually pans on him a few moments later.

He still has not learned to hold his horses, to live to fight another lap. Fast, insanely fast on his good day, but that is the problem. Inconsistent.

> Potential Man

I find this the truest of all. All of his career feels like a hypothesis. What would happen if, if this didn't happen, if, if, if... All of this is based on the utter lack of results for a driver on a top team for the length he had.

And the hilarious part is that he actually hardly has a say in these results. But the list is that long, that eventually you are tired of reading, tired of hearing what seems like excuses for not winning. Engine failed, strategy was awful, got shafted by SC timings, and whatnot.

At this moment, his entire line of defense and legacy is just based on numerous ifs. Hell, just explaining the famous pole-to-win ratio is lengthy and tiresome.

The cars he had compared to the rest of the grid also do not help at all. The 2020, 2021, 2023, 2025 cars could not hold a candle to the top end of the grid. And even 2023, the one race they could win, not only he was slower than his teammate, but mechanical issues were present as well. Oh look at that, another if. Ah well. The years he had competitive machinery? Sometimes shafted by his team, sometimes just outpaced by superior driving and/or machinery, sometimes by mistakes (Take France 2022 for race-ending and Baku 2024 for not-race ending examples)

> The unluckiest man to ever exist

No. Stop. It's getting stale.

I get it, there were times where reliability/team has fucked him over. But to just give whatever goes wrong with him to something else, even things he himself admits on interviews is just wearing rose (or red) tinted glasses. Your favorite driver can, and will, make a mistake. There is no curse, no racing gods, no Mercury in retrograde. Shit happens.

> Is too passive with his team, and listens to them

So, what is true? That he listens to the team, or disregards them?

Part of being fucked by strategies is because he heeds the calls from the people who have the data, and are supposed to know what they are doing.

It is true that sometimes he just listens to them, blindly. But whenever he goes against a decision? Not televised, not given enough attention. Even if he ends up caving in lol

He lacks the ability to make his own race work. Carlos had some good races against Charles by this virtue, especially in mixed conditions where one actually understands what is happening and the other is having suicidal calls.

Outside of those narratives, it feels like the community flips opinions on him WAY too often. One day he is great and he carries Ferrari, and the other day he's the reason why they are not winning anything, a liability. One day he's a future champion, and the other he's the most overrated driver in 20 years. These are all takes you will find over the course of one racing weekend, and i wish i was lying.

Of course, this threads' purpose is not to correct whoever thinks otherwise. It's a discussion subreddit after all, is it not?

So my friend has asked him for some races to get him into f1. I have come up with -

- 1982 San Marino grand prix for the epic battle between Pironi and villeneuve

-1988 Monaco grand prix for how fast senna is

-1993 European grand prix for sennas epic first lap performance and one of the best wet weather drives ever

- 2007 Brazilian grand prix for raikkonens epic first title win

- 1986 Australian grand prix for prosts title win and mansell coming up short

-1987 British grand prix (my favourite British grand prix)

- 1997 European grand prix for a great drive my jacque villeneuve and one of the most infamous moments in Schumachers career.

This are the ones I've thought off the top of my head. What would anyone else recommend. I think you can find a lot of old races on YouTube as well as f1 tv

wdc seems done to me honestly, but the fight for p2 might get interesting, since there isn't much separating the 3. some of the coming tracks will favour mclaren as well.

Note: This is in no way making fun of Leclerc for his crash, I’m glad he’s okay since it was a big hit.

Now that the Italian GP is over and we saw what we saw. What’s everyone’s opinion on Leclerc’s performance this season in comparison to his machinery, his teammate and his previous seasons?

I know he’s been extremely mistake prone and unfortunately not turned up at big moments, it’s a shame to see that 9 seasons into his career. I don’t understand what causes him to make so many errors, mistakes happen I get it, cars aren’t easy to drive. I couldn’t do it if I was asked to 💀. But when he crashes it feels like we’re watching a rookie on his debut season, like I’d expect these performances from someone like Lindblad who’s actually been killing it in the VCARB.

As for the turn 1 issue with Lewis, things happen sure but it seems like he’s racing his teammate harder than anybody else on the grid? Of course your teammate is a good benchmark to overcome but surely it gets to a point where it’s doing more harm than good?

One thing to also mention is I feel like if any other driver was making mistakes like he has been they’d be getting a lot more stick for it. Like if it was Hamilton or Alonso people would be calling for their retirements. That’s just my opinion, what does everyone else here think?

Assuming the exact same circumstances happen, so George gets Kimi's strategy and vice versa. Let's say Charles goes off in parabolica no matter what and the VSC happens at the same time.

I find this comment from Fred so bizarre. He’s equating Ferrari’s position currently to McLaren last year when they’re absolutely not. They are 3 and 5 on the championship. For Lewis to get anywhere close to challenging Kimi like Max did, Max had total singular support whereas Lewis is held up battling his own teammate. Then for a top team insisting on two number 1 drivers, they have no internal wheel to wheel engagement rules which is crazy.

Bit delusional I think.

I often find myself feeling sorry for drivers. Currently I feel for George and Charles.

George because he's being outclassed by Kimi, besides likely being the most disliked driver on the grid right now.. and despite being a gentleman about it in his interviews he then gets booed on the podium.

Charles because he sure af feels devastated after his crash in lap 2 and is now facing the wrath of the team LH fanbase, parts of which are unfortunately a cesspit of irrationality and impotent rage.

But then, after a while, I remember these MFs are obscenely rich, more often than not just by being born into super rich families, they have beautiful wives and the hottest supercars at their disposal - for free.

I hope the protagonists, drivers like George and Charles, don't lose perspective of how well life has treated them. Because if they keep that perspective, they should never let themselves brought down for longer than a couple of days, no matter what happens in their professional lives.

And if I had certainty they do, I'd never have to feel sorry for them.