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Charles Leclerc, just like his predecessor Sebastian Vettel, is heading for a failed championship campaign this season. The driver had a great car under him at the start of the season but one thing after the other went wrong and what we see now is Leclerc facing a 116-point deficit that cannot be surmounted this season.
Having said that, what would be a rather shocking observation for a Charles Leclerc fan is the similarities in the title campaigns of the Monegasque and Sebastian Vettel, the lead driver for the last Ferrari title challenge, which took place in 2018. The campaign capitulated in the second half of the season and the Lewis Hamilton-Mercedes combo cruised to a win.
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Since then, Ferrari has changed the drivers. We now have Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in place of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel. The top management has changed as well since Mattia Binotto's political coup to usurp Maurizio Arrivabene worked, and he became the new team principal.
There have been changes in the structure too, and Ferrari tried to rebuild itself to become a championship-winning team by the time the new regulations arrived for the 2022 F1 season.
Despite all of these changes, the misery of a Ferrari lead driver has not changed at all. The failed championship campaigns of Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel (the 2018 F1 Championship campaign) are shockingly similar and for a Ferrari/Charles Leclerc fan, this should be alarming.
A strong start to the season for both Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel
Charles Leclerc had, without a doubt, the fastest car on the grid at the start of the season. He won the race in Bahrain in what was a straight fight between him and Max Verstappen. He was also very close to winning the second race at Saudi Arabia. He then won the third race in Australia, where he dominated the field.
After the first three races of the season, Leclerc enjoyed a 46-point advantage over Max Verstappen, his main title rival.
In Sebastian Vettel's case, things were far more consistent and the challenge was much more sustained. Vettel was only 17 points behind Lewis Hamilton after the 2018 F1 Belgian GP and everything was still on the line.
Consistent drop in form as the season progresses
For both Vettel and Leclerc, the one thing that was consistent was their drop in performance.
For Vettel, this happened around Monza and Singapore, from which point he could not compete with the Mercedes anymore and became too desperate.
For Leclerc, it happened much earlier. Even though things were more or less nip and tuck between the two teams, the momentum had started shifting towards Red Bull from Imola onwards. This drop in form has seen Leclerc unable to even fight Verstappen anymore in races.
Drivers determining strategies during the races
One of the more irritating things to see during the race is the long discussion that Leclerc has with his race engineer. A driver should not dictate race strategy this extensively, that too during a race where he has bigger fish to fry, especially given that Max Verstappen would be relentless even on his worst day.
At that time, Leclerc doing double duty as a driver as well as a strategist looks counter-productive at best. What this also does is show a complete breakdown of trust in the strategy department for the driver, something that is not desirable in any state.
The same thing happened with Sebastian Vettel during his stint with Ferrari. The German had suffered from a complete breakdown of trust in the kind of work that the strategy team was doing. While the situation was not as dire as with Leclerc, and Vettel was not deciding race strategies every time before he pit, there was still constant back and forth during the race.
That crash from the lead of the race
For Sebastian Vettel, the pivotal crash was the one from the lead at the 2018 F1 German GP. For Charles Leclerc, it is the crash at Paul Ricard this season.
In both cases, the driver error was inexcusable. Vettel should not have beached the car while in the lead. Similarly, Leclerc should not have crashed in the dry at Paul Ricard. Were both drivers already drained from the emotional challenges of being a Ferrari driver? Maybe.
In 2018, Vettel lost a ridiculous amount of time to Hamilton as he got stuck behind his teammate. That might mean that he overdrove the car.
Leclerc was carrying the baggage of multiple DNFs because of reliability and then to make things worse, had to encounter one strategic disaster after another. Maybe that led to him pushing too hard at the time, thereby making him go into the wall. Regardless, the fact of the matter is that both the drivers did crash out from the lead of the race and had to deal with the resulting infamy.
When one tries to observe and compare the two failed campaigns, it reveals far too many shocking similarities. In fact, Charles Leclerc is going through the same things as Sebastian Vettel did, only worse. The car lost competitiveness earlier. The strategy team is in worse shape, and to add to that, there's no acceptance of these shortcomings.
Being a Ferrari driver brings with it a lot of prestige. In the last decade, however, it has brought a lot of pain as well. And judging by the similarities between what Sebastian Vettel went through and what Charles Leclerc is going through, the pain won't recede soon.
