Can Charles Leclerc become the next Ferrari champion?
The announcement of Charles Leclerc swapping places with Kimi Raikkonen in the coming season caused an uproar in not just Kimi fans but also in the Tifosi. Kimi garnered a lot of love in his years driving for Ferrari, adding to it the Fin is also the last champion for Ferrari. With Raikkonen gone, the question which hovers is, will Charles Leclerc become the next Ferrari champion ending the Mercedes dominance.
It has been 11 years since the world has seen a new Ferrari champion. The move by Ferrari of swapping Leclerc with Raikkonen is not something Ferrari does conventionally, it's a very unusual move by Ferrari and more like the move of Giles Villeneuve after Niki Lauda quit the team.
Leclerc has shown great consistency in qualifying for Sauber, and the genius that he is, the Monaco-born driver was able to drag the Sauber into Q2, even Q3 in some qualifying. The race results in 17 races where Leclerc finished 7 times within the points show that he has the speed and is talented enough to drive for Ferrari.
There are many different opinions regarding his move and one of them is that it is very early for Leclerc to drive for the Marrenalo team. The unusual move may be a signal that Ferrari is now tired of Sebastian Vettel and wants to invest in LeClerc because somewhere Vettel is making a lot of driving errors which is not acceptable considering his experience as a quadruple world champion.
Ferrari maybe thinking about doing a Red Bull philosophy that is promoting young drivers instead of experienced one. The car SF71H has performed pretty well this season; the high hopes of possible Ferrari championship again drained out after Lewis Hamilton took an enormous lead following the Belgium Grand Prix gaining from small errors Ferrari and Vettel did.
Marchionne made the first call to advance Leclerc after his impressive start to his rookie season this year. After three bad races, Leclerc turned tables at the fourth race in Baku, where he took the Sauber to an amazing 6th place. His solid shape has proceeded and after 14 races he has out-qualified Marcus Ericsson 11 times.
Various drivers - including Vettel, Hamilton and two-time champion Fernando Alonso - have commended Leclerc and said he has a brilliant future. It remains to be seen whether he will do justice to the hype surrounding him.