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this is charles leclerc world and we're just living in it

[il-predestinato]

A few thoughts on Charles Leclerc’s 2021 season.

I have seen so many inaccurate takes all over social media - “he’s no longer number one” and “Sainz is better” and “he’s not consistent” etc. Nothing could be further from the truth.

He has been nothing short of the ‘best of the rest’ despite his absolutely cursed season. He is the one pulling 20s+ gaps on the rest of his midfield group. Ten top 5 finishes, six P4s. One podium, when he should have had many more if not for his atrocious luck.

I can’t even begin to describe his terrible luck: Imola, where he carved out 27s ahead of Lando until it was wiped out with a safety car. Silverstone with his engine cuts, and I still don’t know how he dragged that car onto the podium on a power track. Strategy gamble in Turkey - losing the podium in a longshot for a win. Hungary when Lance Stroll went bowling. Russia where he was a fucking overtake masterclass until the rain, where Carlos was pitted first, causing him to slide out of the points. Qatar where he was hampered by an undetected crack in his chassis… which apparently developed at the beginning of the triple header, meaning he was in his third race weekend with a broken car. Then the red flag in Jeddah. And Monaco. I can’t even talk about Monaco without wanting to smash something. Yes, he crashed, but so have many others; they don’t get a DNS - only he does. Fuck - Max crashed in qualifying in Jeddah and started in P2. Everyone else that crashed in quali gets to start the race.

In a head-to-head comparison with his teammate, here are his results:

14 (Charles) vs. 8 (Carlos) in Qualifying

14 (Charles) vs. 6 (Carlos) in Race

2 (Charles) vs. 0 (Carlos) in Poles

2 (Charles) vs. 1 (Carlos) in Front Row starts

Charles has been convincingly ahead in race pace

Carlos is a great driver. I love him, and I’ve written essays defending him. I don’t want to take anything away from him. He’s had a great season in a new team. He’s a lovely teammate. He is the epitome of reliability. But fortune has also smiled on him this season. When he makes a mistake, the costs have been minimal. When he bins it, he gets to continue. When chaos reigns, Carlos gets a podium (his reliability where others fail is one of his strongest qualities). But when those things happen to Charles, the car/strategy team/weather commit crimes against him.

Not only has Charles been one of the most consistent drivers on the grid - his weaknesses from previous seasons: managing the tires, race pace, inchidents with other drivers, etc. - he has worked on and improved in every single facet. He never blames the team, even when their strategy completely fucks him (see: last Sunday). He’s always gracious to his teammate. He remembered to congratulate Max and Lewis despite his own disappointment. He said to Canal+ last weekend that Monaco is “still stuck in his throat,” and yet he takes every blow and carries on, always working to improve himself.

And Carlos is right when he said it doesn’t matter whether it’s P5 or P6 or P7. And maybe it doesn’t matter to him or Charles. Because both of them are better people than I could ever be. Because fuck, I was no, I still am fucking crushed when Ferrari’s terrible strategy last weekend cost Charles P5 and P6. Why? Because despite all of his shit ass luck this season, I wanted to say - look, he clawed and fought like a champion, and wrestled that position in the standings that should be his. I really - desperately - wanted that for him.

It actually fills me with incandescent RAGE when people are mocking him, downplaying his season, ignoring all the progress he has made. When they are utterly ignorant of how amazing his driving has been this whole year. Maybe I shouldn’t care, when the people that matter already know the truth: Mattia Binotto who called him Ferrari’s future world champion and said “you were very unlucky” and “we’re going to have fun next year - you too, you’ll see,” Carlos who is filled with praise and gratitude to him, Charles himself who should know what an amazing job he has done…

So, yes. But - 

Charles Leclerc. I freakin’ adore him, okay? They need to respect his name.

[szalecair]

sorry, need to let emotions go so it might be long one.

what did charles leclerc ever done to the universe? he's always nice, always puts other people feelings before his (for example how he backed out from hugging lewis today after seeing how he feels), never puts a blame on the team, thanks everyone for the job they do, congratulates everyone when they deserve it, admits his mistakes, appreciates his fans, has big heart, loves ferrari, he basically IS ferrari but yet universe seems to have something against him.

this whole season has been constant bad luck for nim. i won't even say in which races because i would have to highlight half of the races this season. the amount of times he had to overdrive some issues with the car isn't small either. i'm still shocked by how he managed the results he did in mexico and brasil with a car that very possibly had damaged chasis. engine cuts at silverstone. engine braking problems at monza. the damn quali in qatar when he outqualifed a mclaren with chasis that was not only damaged but just broken at this point.

and i'm not gonna mention all races but monaco. the poor monaco still hurts the most. yes charles shouldn't have crashed BUT it shouldn't end up with a DNS. tons of others drivers crashed in quali. max after his one got p2. carlos after his one got lucky podium. you can't convince me monaco wasn't bad luck.

and then the damn quali yesterday when he didn't get a tow from sainz when he was supposed to (he gave one to carlos in the first q3 run) that could've completely changed the results today considering how fast his pace was but it was almost impossible to overtake here.

he shoved this year he's a great driver. almost always delivered as much as the car lets him. improved on many parts, most importantly race pace. found the balance in the set up for himself. sure if you look at his p7 you don't see anything impressive. but for me who watched his season closely he's been more than impressive. he's been the best of the rest no matter what results say. showed once again why he's the future of ferrari and why they believe in him. he's their future and mattia knows that. the whole ferrari knows that.

2022 is going to be his. so everyone enjoy those three months of break. charles will get the car next year and then he's going to show everyone how good he is. not only the people like us, who pay attention what he does every race.

[szalecair]

[szalecair]

Charles Leclerc | 11.11.2021 | Brazil

[countingstars-17]

Q: What do you think of Charles' driving skills and his development over these three years? And do you think Ferrari made the right choice by building the team around him?

[footyleclerc]

CHARLES LECLERC • 16th October, 1997

🍒 happy 24th birthday to ferrari's prince 🍒

here's to the youngest ever ferarri race winner! here's to the first monegasque to win a formula one world championship grand prix! here's to the youngest driver to win the Pole Trophy award! here's to a man, to whom the future belongs!

[szalecair]

not tagging it or writing on twitter because people would eat me alive but sainz actually become overrated, he's getting heavily praised for getting p8 from p20 in rain and people are already talking about how he had a better come back than charlie last week who did go from p19 to p7/8 idk don't remember in dry AT SOCHI and it would've only been better if it didn't start raining i'm so fucking tired of this

[illegalferrariengine]

charles has improved massively this season and the fact that he’s not had the results to show for it due to something as trivial as luck absolutely sucks. remember when he used to get criticised for his tyre management? now that man is doing longer stints than checo the tyre god himself. like, he was going to do a full race on one set. i think if you told charles the tyreater in 2019 that he’d be able to do that just a couple of years down the line he’d have had a little chuckle, shook his head and told you to do one. even his pure race pace is getter ever better, he literally had a setup designed for a dry track and didn’t just make it work - he was one of the fastest on the grid. i know they’ve got that engine upgrade but even looking back to the start of the year he used to end up being stuck in p4 because he was that much faster than everyone else but still lacked that extra speed to be right up at the sharp end; now he’s actively being competitive with them. today was another great display of his skills which yet again were overshadowed by a gamble that didn’t pay off but we do have to take a step back and really appreciate the fact that we’re disappointed with a result that realistically the car never deserved anyway.

[leqclerc]

Not to be a rat on the main but today's events got me thinking. In that race recap video, Carlos couldn't read room that Charles ended up having a miserable day. I don't have strong feelings about Carlos either way, he had every right to be happy, there was no empathy for Charles, and it got me thinking about Turkey and Seb at least mentioning that one day Charles wasn't even going to remember that podium. I'm not expecting Carlos to go cry with him, it's more that he seemed unbothered LOL

Noooo you're so right! And you're not the first one to pick up on this 👀

Yeah like I get that Carlos is happy but it was a bit :/// considering how Charles's race went and generally the vibe was a lot different compared to Turkey. I still go feral whenever I remember that Charles paused in the middle of his angry multi-lingual rant to congratulate Seb. And that Seb mentioned him in the press conference and said he'd go talk to him and assure him that it won't be his last podium. Literally no one doing it like them 😭

Ngl I didn't pay much attention to Carlos and his career before his stint at Ferrari but... is it just me or does he have a bit of an ego? Like. In Monaco I remember quotes floating around about how he "could've been on pole." Okay but you weren't? And then how he could've won in Hungary but...he only inherited the podium because AM fucked Seb over with the fuel thing. I mean it’s mostly just kind of funny but it’s happened enough times by now that I’m like 🤔 And now with this...obviously he's happy for himself, that's to be expected, but if there are multiple people picking up on the fact that he failed to read the room especially since Charles initially refused to pit so as not to disadvantage Carlos with a double stack... Hmm.

[insufferablelust]

agreed, agreed, AFUCKINGGREED.

[pinsaroulettes]

charles leclerc + i bet on losing dogs by mitski

(tw: crash footage)

[szalecair]

nothing more to say.

[szalecair]

charles is such a trendsetter that he took the penalty and now everyone are copying him to the point giovinazzi even with gearbox penalty starts higher than he qualified yesterday and they're ruining his race with that. literally two places at podium are empty because the guys that would probably take them are starting at the back. and you know where is charles then? ALSO AT THE BACK instead of fighting for the places at front. i still think he would get the pole yesterday if he was fighting. but no his luck is awful every damn week, we charles fans have to suffer every weekend so of course he's stuck at the back of a track where it's hard to overtake with red bull and mercedes next to him. give me a break!!

[countingstars-17]

CHARLES LECLERC x Ray-Ban

© Ray-Ban/Ferrari

[pinsaroulettes]

😉😉😉

[szalecair]

i watched that charles winking video so many times already, saw gifs and screenshots and i just CAN'T GET OVER IT i can't stop, he's probably the only person that can look that hot with a damn red nose and did you see that smirk?? when he smiled after wink i'm pretty sure my heart was on the floor i really hope ferrari and him are proud of themselves because i'm pretty sure they killed half of f1 community fucking bastards. this is his weekend, he's the main character and we're just here to witness it all. so basically the moral of this post is that charles is winning on sunday.

[szalecair]

BREAKING: Charles Leclerc learned how to wink.

[szalecair]

max fans being actually scared of charles possibly starting next to him are so fucking funny "he will have his bozo moment" "leclerc will take him out" "leclerc is such a dirty driver" because charles is actually one of the cleanest drivers on first lap this season, he only had fault in that incident with pierre but sure! but when you tell them that they bring out the incidents from last year. like yeah he was driving a fucking sf1000 then and had to risk it? plus if you wanna talk about past let's talk about 2018. literally stop crying!! it's not the first and won't be the last time they'll start next to each other, i'm sure it'll be pretty common next year. oh god, i hate people.