Who slept the worst last night: Charles Leclerc

Do you remember Jean Alesi? The passionate Frenchman in a Ferrari, whose fearlessness always reminded him a bit of Gilles Villeneuve , was considered a future Formula 1 champion, especially at the beginning of his career. Unforgettable is how he challenged the great Ayrton Senna at Phoenix in 1990, driving the inferior Tyrrell, and ultimately finished second, at the start of only his second season in the premier class of motorsport.

For years, the experts in the Formula 1 paddock agreed that Alesi would become world champion sooner or later. Sooner rather than later. In the summer of 1990, two of the major teams, Ferrari and Williams, wanted to sign him. Alesi signed with both, and in the end, the lawyers decided he had to go to Ferrari. Many still wonder today how his career would have turned out if he had been in the Williams in 1992 instead of Nigel Mansell, in 1993 instead of Alain Prost, and in 1994 instead of Ayrton Senna. Perhaps he would be a three-time champion today.

But things turned out differently. Alesi went to Ferrari, a team that was still searching for its new identity immediately after Enzo's death and didn't find it until the late 1990s, when Michael Schumacher arrived and Alesi was already gone.

At the end of his Formula 1 career, which lasted until 2001, he had only a single Grand Prix victory. A statistic that doesn't really fit with Alesis's natural speed and car control. But in retrospect, he probably a) didn't have enough nerves, b) considered himself a superstar far too early, and c) wasn't the right fit at Ferrari.

Maybe I'm just fantasizing. But does anyone recognize any parallels to Charles Leclerc ?

Leclerc: Is he now falling behind against Hamilton?

The now 27-year-old Monegasque, who needed seven "fucks" to describe his own performance on Saturday ("Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck that. So fucking shit I am. I am so fucking shit. That's all I am."), wasn't particularly satisfied with his own performance after the race either. After crossing the finish line, he said on the radio: "That was fuckingly bad." Meaning, "That was really bad of me."

It may sound strange, but when Leclerc is beaten by Lewis Hamilton , alarm bells start ringing. "Where am I losing ground to Lewis? I guess a little bit everywhere?" he once asked during the Silverstone race. "Yes, a little bit everywhere," his race engineer replied. And when Leclerc was advised that he could gain the most time in Turns 1, 2, 12, and 13, he was simply amazed: "How can that be? I'm already pushing Turns 1 and 2 to the limit!"

Silverstone was the first weekend where Leclerc felt like the slower of the two Ferrari drivers. No wonder, since the former military airfield is not only the Home of British Motor Racing, but also, so to speak, Hamilton's living room. The seven-time world champion has been on the podium there every year since 2013 (until yesterday), and with nine RAC Gold Cups, he is the record winner at Silverstone. By a landslide.

But there's some evidence that Silverstone wasn't just a flash in the pan in the team's internal arm-wrestling, but rather a turning point. Jerome D'Ambrosio, Frederic Vasseur's deputy as team principal, revealed on Friday that Hamilton has now realized, in terms of setup, that, like Leclerc, he simply has to live with a loose rear end instead of trying to fix it. And lo and behold, the internal momentum is already shifting in his favor.

Respectable, but ultimately not enough?

Leclerc started in Formula 1 in 2018. By the end of 2025, he will have completed his eighth year, the seventh of which will be with Ferrari. And he still has a relatively meager eight Grand Prix victories to his name. He finished second in 2022 and third in 2024 in the Drivers' World Championship. Respectable achievements, to be sure. But fundamentally, far too few for a man of his talent.

At Silverstone, Leclerc ultimately finished 14th, almost a lap behind. There was little left of the carefree young man who, just as then-Sauber physio Josef Leberer predicted, immediately made life difficult for Sebastian Vettel in 2019 and ultimately ended his internal dominance at Ferrari.

In the 2025 Drivers' Championship, Leclerc is halfway through in fifth place with 119 points. Hamilton, although he feels slower on most race weekends, is close behind with 103 points. I'll admit: I actually expected Leclerc to take down the next multiple champion after Vettel and send Hamilton into retirement at Ferrari. But that's not what's looking like after Silverstone. It now looks more like a duel of equals. Which speaks for Hamilton. And against Leclerc.

Don't get me wrong: It's an outstanding lifetime achievement to have driven Formula 1 for Ferrari for ten years, with a few Grand Prix victories thrown in for good measure. They love Leclerc in Italy – and that applies not only to the powerful Agnelli clan, but also to the fans in Imola and Monza. I'm sure Jean Alesi would agree, looking back, that he had a wonderful, privileged life. With plenty of dollars in his bank account, which isn't the most important thing, but it helps you approach retirement a bit more relaxed.

But Charles Leclerc isn't Jean Alesi after all. In go-karts, he's proven that he's actually more in the same league as Max Verstappen . It's about time he proved that. And became Formula 1 World Champion.

That won’t work in 2025.

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Note: It is in the nature of things that this column reflects my subjective perception. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to discuss it with me on my Facebook page "Formula 1 inside with Christian Nimmervoll." There, you won't primarily find breaking news from the Grand Prix circuit, but rather strictly subjective and sometimes quite biting assessments of the most important developments behind the scenes in Formula 1.