"He'll probably end the year dominating Carlos Sainz": Charles Leclerc tipped to bounce back in the Ferrari intra-team battle

F1 pundit Peter Windsor has claimed that despite Charles Leclerc being outperformed by teammate Carlos Sainz, he would dominate the Spaniard by the end of the year.

In a surprising turn of events, the Spanish driver has been leading his Monagasque teammate in head-to-head in both races and qualifying. Sainz is the only driver to beat Max Verstappen on two occasions in the past 22 races.

While appearing on Cameron F1's YouTube channel, Windsor opined that Charles Leclerc is under pressure from his teammate but the situation could change by the end of the 2024 campaign. He said:

"We're seeing Charles is under the under pressure now because he's the chosen one and he's getting beaten by the chosen one and he's got to start asserting his dominance obviously and he doesn't understand and nor do nor do his garage really understand why he's not getting it together.

"They're going in sort of that direction at the moment and yeah it'll come back for sure he will come back and and he'll probably end end the year dominating Carlos I suspect but right now it's it's a moment in time when we should really enjoy this because you're seeing such strength of character from Carlos."

Ferrari team boss chimes in on Carlos Sainz-Charles Leclerc situation

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has stated that he isn't 'worried' at all about Carlos Sainz outperforming Charles Leclerc since the beginning of the 2024 season.

Speaking to Sky Sports, the Frenchman said after the Japanese GP qualifying:

"I'm not at all [worried]. Charles was P2 [in Australia] last week. Today he's one tenth off Carlos, he knows perfectly where he needs something. For now, [Leclerc's issue] was more lap one, Q1 than something else. The season is long and I'm not worried at all about the situation."

Despite being behind in pure performance, Charles Leclerc leads his teammate in the Driver's Championship as he sits on P3 with 59 points as compared to Sainz's 55. However, the Spanish driver missed the Saudi Arabian GP due to appendicitis.

The Ferrari driver would be well aware of the task in front of him for the rest of the season as he has previously been his teammate in two of their three years together so far.

Heading into the Chinese GP next weekend, Leclerc would look to take control of the situation as he would have two opportunities to beat Sainz given it's a sprint weekend.