In his seventh F1 season, Charles Leclerc had his best and most consistent campaign to date with Ferrari in 2024 — the Monegasque driver won three races, finishing P3 in the Drivers’ Championship in the process.
Wheel-to-wheel racing and making changes depending on the opponent
One of the most impressive traits the 27-year-old has is his ability in wheel-to-wheel combat against any driver in the field. His defensive excellence against Piastri in Zandvoort and Verstappen at Interlagos was admirable.
His overtaking has been top notch for years. Leclerc’s moves against the Mercedes drivers in China, Miami and Qatar (Sprint) were exceptional as he added a few more to the list in 2024. The first lap show at the final round will be played back for many years as well.
The 8-time race winner explained in Abu Dhabi how much fun he has going up against other drivers, and he discussed how important is it to adapt his style depending on who he’s up against.
For example, Max Verstappen is known for his very aggressive moves. On the other side of the coin, drivers like Valtteri Bottas can be quite cautious.
“I always enjoy wheel-to-wheel.
“I think it’s always a very exciting moment of the weekend where you’ve got to adapt to different drivers. Of course, you get to know drivers and you adapt your driving style to it as well.
“And obviously, when lots is at stake, it’s where you can take also more risk, and that’s where I enjoy the most.
“For example, with Oscar [Piastri in Qatar], obviously there was a bit more risk taken just because I know that it was very important for us to be taking as many points as possible to them.
“So there’s also this part of the story that at the beginning of the year, maybe you have a bit less, but at the end of the year, when you are fighting with one clear target, you can afford to be a bit more on the aggressive side, which I enjoy.”
Ferrari delivering a good season
Although Ferrari missed out on the Constructors’ Championship by 14 points, they arguably executed a better season than McLaren when looking at it from a performance point of view.
While McLaren deservedly won the championship thanks to amazing effort from the team regarding upgrades since Austria in 2023, with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri delivering the goods on track.
Nonetheless, the Ferrari duo had arguably stronger 2024 F1 seasons if you look at it from a perspective of Leclerc vs Norris and Sainz vs Piastri. The Scuderia made less mistakes via the pit wall as well.
Ferrari did not have the tools to fight McLaren from Miami until the update package introduced at Monza, aside from Monaco. A floor update in Barcelona set them back. Unlike in previous years, however, they bounced back with updates that worked.
They won three races from the Italian GP, and the Maranello giants pushed their counterparts from Woking incredibly hard until Abu Dhabi.
The Monegasque driver reflected on how the team operated in 2024.
“Then looking back at the season, I think the season has been very solid from the whole team.
“I think there’s the performance of the car, which we weren’t at the level where we wanted to be, especially for the first half of the season. The second half, we were more in line with McLaren and Red Bull.”
Getting the maximum results available in 2024
In 2024, Charles Leclerc finished in the top 5 in 21 of the 24 Grands Prix, including 13 podium finishes. It was a year of excellent consistency.
Throwing it back to 2 years ago, errors at Imola from P3 and Paul Ricard from the lead showed a bit of work still needed to be done to maximise each weekend.
This time around, he bagged very good podiums or points when Ferrari did not have the pace of Red Bull and/or McLaren, as shown in China, Barcelona, Zandvoort and other rounds.
It’s something Leclerc acknowledged he has improved on as a driver.
“But as a driver, I feel like looking back at this year, there hasn’t been really any missed opportunities, which in the other years, when I look back, there was always one or two races where there was an exceed of […] I wanted to do things that were not possible, and by that, it was biting me.
“And that would mean that I would get zero points in the weekend where I could have put 10 or 8 points, even if that’s not much.
“At the end, when you add these things up, it makes a difference. And on a year like this, I don’t think I’ve left any opportunities behind, and that is why I’m satisfied with the season.”
Monaco the standout moment of the 2024 season
Leclerc took out wins at Monaco, Monza and COTA in the 2024 F1 season, equalling his victory total of 2022 with three across a full campaign at Ferrari.
Unsurprisingly, he picked Monaco as his moment of the year as the 27-year-old won his home race for the first time in very emotional circumstances.
A DNS when he was due to start on pole in 2021, and a botched strategy when leading in 2022 led to plenty of heartbreak before glory arrived back in May.
“If I got only to choose one, it would be Monaco.
“Monaco for me was very special, obviously being my home race, I’ve grown up dreaming of being a Formula 1 driver and being able to race in Monaco one day.
“And then once you’re in Formula 1, you only dream about winning it, which happened this year.
“And I think the fact that for two, three years in a row, it was very close, but we never managed to actually have the final results, [and it] made this year even more special.”
2024 would not have been perfect with the Constructors’ Championship
While Leclerc, Sainz and Ferrari overall delivered very strong performances in the 2024 F1 season, even winning the Constructors’ Championship would not have been enough to fully satisfy the Monegasque driver.
Although Red Bull got close to perfection regarding race wins in 2023, producing a perfect season with 24 races is virtually impossible.
Nonetheless, Leclerc pointed to the team maximising results with the SF-24 when their package was not able to challenge for wins or podiums.
“A perfect season, no, because I would only rate a perfect season if we win, and even if we win the Drivers’ and the Constructors’, probably there’s always something you can do better. So, not a perfect season.
“However a very good season in terms of execution-wise. I think we executed always at a very, very high level, because if you look at the performance in itself at the beginning of the season, I don’t think we would have believed anybody that would have said that we would be in a fight for the Constructors’ at the last race.
“The performance was not good enough, however we worked extremely well, we had a really massive improvement throughout the year.
“And in the difficult weekends we didn’t demotivate ourselves, we maximised all the points possible.
“So execution-wise we were at a very high level, performance a little bit less in the first half.”
