Former Haas Formula 1 team principal Guenther Steiner says Charles Leclerc must learn from Lewis Hamilton’s assertiveness and mental approach to extract the maximum from Ferrari.
Following Hamilton’s breakthrough victory for the Maranello outfit at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, Steiner argued that Leclerc should not only focus on the telemetry data or technical set-ups, but also on how Hamilton works with the team.
“Charles is a very fast race car driver. Charles is also clever. He will jump on the bandwagon, on the Lewis Hamilton bandwagon, like we saw in Monte Carlo,” Steiner said during an appearance on The Red Flags Podcast.
“He said, ‘I want what Lewis had on his car, the brakes, I need to go in that direction.’ It gave him the confidence that what Lewis does is good, and now he has to use what Lewis does and maybe take a step back to go forward.
“He needs to say, ‘I did it my way, obviously Lewis’s way worked better because he won a race and I didn’t, and now I need to come back and see what he does and try to be faster than him.’
“But in the team, he doesn’t need to do anything because I think he has got a lot of credit in the team anyway. He’s been there a long time, and he will be there for a long time after he signed his contract.”
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images
Steiner argued that Leclerc needs to learn from Hamilton’s proactive approach and his willingness to push back against the team when necessary. He added, “With Charles, I don’t think it’s in the car; the balance of these cars is pretty good. But I think what Charles will learn from what Lewis did is more about how he approached getting it his way.
“The mental part is more [important] than the technical part here. Lewis was not happy last year. He got beaten up by the world, but he kept on doing what he felt he needed to do, and I think what Charles will take out of this is, ‘I have to stand my point,’ because when they changed the brakes on Lewis’s car, they convinced him to stay with the old ones until he convinced himself he needed them too.
“So, for him, the most important thing is to learn how Lewis mentally dealt with that.”
Hamilton currently sits second in the drivers’ championship with 115 points, while Leclerc is fourth with 75 points.
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