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Charles Leclerc faced up to the media after the British GP, where he had the look of a driver who had shed a tear or two for the kind of race he had. The Monegasque driver has gone through what can only be termed a disaster in the last four races, where whatever has happened fails to make sense.
The worst thing in all of this? He's been here before. He's gone through what can only be described as a traditional Ferrari implosion. Charles Leclerc joined the team in 2019. In 2020, the team was a midfield contender for the power unit irregularities of the previous season.
Until 2022, Charles had to wait as the team got back on its feet as a frontrunner. After a four-race period where 'Ferrari was back' as a frontrunner, it started falling apart again. We're in 2024 now and it was only four races ago that Leclerc had won his home race in Mexico.
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Not only that, he was second in the championship and Max Verstappen was not too far ahead either. If not a title challenge, Charles Leclerc was looking at a season where he could get a prolonged taste of what it's like to be a title contender and battle at the front.
Since then, we've had four races where everything has just gone haywire. From being just 31 points behind Max Verstappen in the championship after Monaco, Charles Leclerc is 105 points behind him. He's not second in the standings anymore and is just four points ahead of his teammate Carlos Sainz, who missed a race in Jeddah.
In Silverstone, after the race, we had a driver who seemed exhausted at how the last four races had turned out and it almost makes one wonder if Charles is already having second thoughts about being with Ferrari in the long-term.
The Ferrari implosion is not new, even for Charles Leclerc
Since 2008, when Ferrari last won a title (constructors), the team has been notorious for dropping the ball far too many times. The team has far too much boardroom influence, and what that does is bring with it the yearning to get fast results. Well, swift results don't happen often in F1, and the team has not learned that lesson.
For a moment, let's leave everything to one side and just look at Charles Leclerc's British GP weekend. The driver ran the upgraded car for FP1, FP2 and FP3 as the team tried to assess both pre- and post-upgraded versions of the car.
Out of the blue, just before qualifying, Ferrari decided that both drivers would run a pre-upgraded version for the rest of the weekend. As was evident, Charles Leclerc was blindsided and went into the session without any prior running in that car. He was eliminated in Q2 and would eventually start the race in P11.
What happened in the race was a comedy of errors, as for the second time in four races, Charles Leclerc was left out on track with the wrong tires. He was on intermediate tires on a dry track in Silverstone, just like he was on slicks on a wet track in Canada.
At the start of the season, it appeared that Ferrari would acquire the services of Adrian Newey. Well, that didn't happen. Since then, the team was expected to continue to grow and close the gap with Red Bull. On the contrary, the opposite has happened.
What's worse? Enrico Cardille is out of the team and joining Aston Martin. You can see that Ferrari is blindsided by this move because the team has not put a replacement in place already.
The problem with all of this is that it's not the first time the team has gone through this cycle. For Charles Leclerc, the bigger issue is that this is not the first time he's seen this movie play out. He saw the capitulation in 2019, he saw it happen in 2022, and now he's seeing the same thing in 2024.
What does the future hold?
In fairness, things don't look good for Ferrari for 2025 or 2026. The team is currently fourth in terms of performance, distinctly behind Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes. Not only that, there are no big names joining the team, which is a big thumbs down in terms of confidence in the team.
Other than Lewis Hamilton, who would be joining the team next season, you don't see the squad having the kind of pedigree that should be in place before the team starts winning. To make things worse, the old wrinkles that caused a lot of trouble to Ferrari are still there.
The strategic unit is in the dumps, and it has been in the dumps for a long time. When it comes to pressure or tricky situations, the team does not perform well. When we talk about the trajectory of growth or decline. Ferrari is stuck somewhere in between at the moment.
Should Charles Leclerc look elsewhere?
Charles Leclerc loves the brand and the team. It has given him the opportunity and the fame that comes with it. Every driver has a breaking point, however, and that's the case with Charles as well.
He might have a long-term contract in the pocket, but as it turns out, these contracts aren't worth the paper they're signed on these days. There's always an exit clause added for certain contingencies, and that could be the case with Charles as well.
Charles could think long and hard about the fact that the Aston Martin project has been hogging all the talent and has all the best resources in F1 right now. The facilities are top notch and so are the engineers that have gone to that team.
The answer to the entire conundrum lies with Charles Leclerc. For every team, performance works in cycles. There's a peak, there are storms of despair and backlash, there's a comeback path, and then there's a resurgence. If we remove the peak, Leclerc is going through the cycle for the third time now.
Does he still have faith? Does he still want to do it? After Silverstone, Charles Leclerc would have surely asked himself this question.
