Leclerc’s life in the shadows since Hamilton’s Ferrari arrival

Charles Leclerc has detailed how he’s been able to focus on his own preparations for the 2025 Formula 1 season, with the spotlight on his new Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton, and the advantages this brings.

Hamilton’s arrival at Ferrari has dominated news stories and been the subject of much social media discussion.

The focus on the seven-time F1 world champion has been enormous and is in stark contrast to Leclerc’s low-key Ferrari arrival in 2019, when he was promoted from Sauber to become Sebastian Vettel’s team-mate.

Leclerc said: “Obviously, it’s very different, the situation that Lewis finds himself in joining the team. When I joined, I only had done one year in Formula 1, so it was still new to me.

“I had to learn how a team like Ferrari would work in Formula 1, even though I knew the factory and everything by being in the Ferrari Driver Academy before.

“For Lewis, an Italian team is new to him, but he’s achieved so much and he arrives here, obviously, as a legend of the sport.

“So it’s really cool to see what it was like for him to have so much success in other teams and the way they used to work.

“On that, we’ve learnt a lot. And it was really exciting also to see how happy and excited he was about the whole thing.

“For me, that meant that the off-season was a bit more in the shadow, but I enjoyed it.

“I focused on myself. I’m pushing at the maximum to be ready for the first race. And I’m really looking forward to this year, hoping we’ll start the year on a more positive way compared to last year.”

When asked about their fledgling partnership, Leclerc added: “I was surprised – our driving style is very similar.

“We both like to push quite a lot, especially the entries to the corners, so that’s positive because it requires the same thing out of the car.

“As a team, that is always a good thing because we’ll definitely push in the same direction because we need the same things, so we’re working super well together.

“We’ve spent quite a bit of time together since the beginning of the year. Less on track, more in the studio to do pictures, which is not the part we enjoy most, but it’s part of the job, but I’m looking forward to race with him and hopefully bring Ferrari back to the top.”

Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur says the team would not become distracted by the interest being shown in Hamilton’s arrival.

“I think everybody and every single team is excited at the beginning of the season – it’s the DNA of our sport,” he said.

“We all have the feeling that we can be world champions at the beginning. And when you are speaking about the drivers or to the teams, we are all positive.

“In our case, in our situation, it went very well this winter. For sure, we had a huge wave of marketing, but the team stayed focused all the winter.”