long post incoming... alright.
(here goes nothing?)
honestly, i am a bit shocked that the discourse took this long before it exploded.
the debates are already going on (that has materialized even before the season started), and the points raised are valid, no matter what side you are on.
1) ferrari legacy: i maintain this view that charles should have a bigger legacy by now, by default. i mean, he has been there since 2019, so at this point in time he should be the better-scoring driver on that team. i remember seeing a tweet a few days ago which said that leclerc has a bigger legacy than vettel and alonso in ferrari by now. real talk, i would only say that he would only surpass their ferrari legacies if or when he wins a wdc with ferrari, but i can see why an increasing number of people are already saying that he is at least close to surpassing the legacies of the two. his pole-to-win conversion rate is what brings that down, although the pole positions (the first component of that same aspect) is also why there's a conversation about it. one can blame the state of the car during his tenure. that is partly true: i think leclerc-era ferrari was the number one car for only two instances: the second half of 2019 and the first part of 2022. alonso did have a more competitive car in the 2010s (especially 2010 when he was leading before abu dhabi began), while vettel was leading for a good part of the 2017 and 2018 seasons. the similarity though was with seb: 2017, 2018 and 2022 all had competitive ferrari cars at the beginning of the season, only to fall off towards the middle and end. that said, cl is not blameless for the shortcomings he encountered. while most of the time he was just unlucky, but there were also instances when he just binned it or had a skill issue; nobody's perfect and he's not a saint (although he's being revered as such by the tifosi). and this extends to car development as well. does this mean he's not that good in giving feedback and contributing to mid-season car development? maybe or maybe not.
2) overall legacy: outside ferrari though, of course not. he is nowhere near. if anything, he's just like lando and oscar at this point (not to mention that as of this writing they have 8 wins each, and are surely going to battle for their ninth win later today. gentlemen start your engines and may the best drag queen driver of the day win). (and it's also kinda awkward, if not embarrassing (on ferrari and mclaren's parts mostly) that both charles and lando have the same number of wins as someone who just entered the sport 4-5 years/5-6 seasons after them, though that's for another day) charlie's eight grand prix wins does not surpass the combined thirteen driver's titles of lew, seb and nano. i will reiterate that it would take four or more world driver's championships before charles surpasses at least one of them, in terms of overall legacy and impact to the sport.
if we're talking about the world championships of course in the current era no one is still touching seb and lewis (aka sewis).
(yes, even maxy – AD21 is still being debated by a good chunk of the fanbase to this day; as for me, i'm a lewis 8 wdc truther... though that's also another post for another day)
3) the teammate-eater/maneater moniker: as for this one, points/results-wise it is still too early to call, although the momentum clearly favours leclerc right now. but who knows what happens later today and in the next 10 rounds? the points gap between leclerc and hamilton is not that high. and the ferrari driver who won a race (be it a sprint or a grand prix) this year is not charlie. psychologically however... sorry but it's rapidly becoming a different story now. depending on how you look at it, that description is increasingly becoming true. just look at what has happened and what is currently happening to ericsson, vettel, sainz, hamilton... yes all of them. marcus went to indycar. sebastian went to AM but eventually retired. carlos went to williams. lewis, though also known to team lh/his fanbase to be just as self-deprecating as lando, is doubting himself like never before. charlo does have a take-no-prisoners attitude towards his teammates (and honestly, so does his fans, aka the lecfosi). on track at least. somehow they're still close to him outside the track. maybe the track terror is still there.
anyway i think this has taken too long... just needed to clarify this one. feel free to block me or unfollow or whatever
