Charles Leclerc's engineer picked by Peter Windsor 'as one of the reasons' Ferrari is struggling with the driver

F1 pundit Peter Windsor has claimed that Charles Leclerc's race engineer has been one of the reasons behind Ferrari's struggles with the driver in 2023.

The former manager of the Italian team in his Live Stream on YouTube, explained the importance of a good dynamic between a race engineer and the driver. He pointed out that this might be an area where the Prancing Horses have struggled with Charles Leclerc.

He said:

“I think it’s very important because the more you can just say in a few words, and then the race engineers know immediately what you’re talking about and can get on with it, the more time you can save and the more you can spend on something else.

“And I just think that’s one of the reasons Ferrari is struggling this year with Charles Leclerc particularly. I’ve got to say, that engineer they do have talking to Charles, I think if I were Charles I’d get a bit annoyed by that."

F1 pundit points out Ferrari's inefficiency with Charles Leclerc and his strategy calls

Windsor further explained that Ferrari do not devise a flexible dialogue with Charles Leclerc as the Monegasque often does not get any input in the calls made during races.

Leclerc is mostly left with confusing messages from his race engineer frequently mid-race, which ultimately affect his strategy and result. He said:

“It’s gone the other way now and you’ve got this guy, I’m not in any way getting personal here, but he says to Charles things like…you can tell he’s thinking in his head, ‘I want to make sure Charles is happy with what we’re going to do’ – which, again, is going too far the other way.

“You don’t want to be asking a driver to help you make a decision in the middle of a race. All he wants is to know the decision has been made for this reason and get on with it. I’m sure that engineer on Charles’ car is a really good bloke and he’s trying to do his best job, it just seems like they’re pussyfooting around rather than just getting on with it.”

The Ferrari F1 team is trolled and criticized mercilessly by the fans on social media almost every single weekend for their mistakes. They have to iron out these deficiencies and become a better and more efficiently run outfit operationally if they want to challenge for world titles in the coming years.