Charles Leclerc makes ‘extremely interesting’ prediction for Lewis Hamilton Ferrari partnership

Charles Leclerc has predicted that it will be both “amazing” and “extremely interesting” to share a car with Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari next year.

News broke before the season started that Hamilton would become a Ferrari driver in a seismic move on the driver market, with Carlos Sainz making way as he heads to Williams in 2025.

Charles Leclerc ready for ‘really big challenge’ of Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari

Hamilton and Leclerc will join forces for the Scuderia in a partnership that will see Ferrari’s long-heralded junior talent, in his seventh season as a driver at Maranello, go up against the sport’s most statistically successful driver in a reunion with Fred Vasseur as team boss, under whom he drove for ART Grand Prix as he rose through the junior categories.

It is a subject which has been brought up to the current Ferrari driver on multiple occasions so far this season, but he sees it as an opportunity to bring the best out of himself and everyone at the team when he does arrive next year.

“I mean, obviously, extremely positive,” Leclerc told the Beyond the Grid podcast when asked what kind of impact Hamilton will bring to Ferrari.

“I think when a champion like Lewis gets to any team, it brings a lot of motivation out of every single person out of the team.

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“So that will be, obviously, the first really positive effect it will have on Ferrari , and obviously he will come also, along with all the experience that he’s had over the years with Mercedes, a different way of working, a different vision, and this is always benefiting a team.

“Other than that, obviously, for me, it’s going to be amazing, because I’ll have in the same car as me the most successful driver in F1 history – and that will be both extremely interesting for me to learn from one of the best ever, as well as a really big challenge and motivation to beat Lewis and to show what I’m capable of.”

Given the first task of any driver is to beat their team-mate, doing so for Leclerc over the course of next season would mean beating one of the best drivers the sport has had.

When asked how he would feel if he could beat Hamilton in the same car, he remained cautious.

“I don’t know and, to be honest, I don’t even think about that yet,” the Monégasque driver responded.

“I just try and focus on myself, try to be the best version of me once he gets here. Obviously, [I] try to be the best version of me every time I’m on track, but with Lewis joining the team, he will definitely be a benchmark, so it will be very important for me to be on my top level, and then we’ll see how it goes.

“I’ll give my best, he will give his best, and then we’ll see, and I can tell you after that, if I make it, how does that feel.”

The pair have already taken their respective dogs, Leo and Roscoe, for a walk together in the paddock at Silverstone, but when it comes to getting to know each other properly, Leclerc said they are yet to spend a proper degree of time together.

When asked how well he knows the seven-time World Champion, Leclerc said they share similar interests and are set to spend more time together over the coming months and years.

“Everything is relative, but inside the paddock, he’s definitely one of the drivers in which, recently especially, we have spoken the most out of our passions, especially music and fashion,” he said.

“So it was good to exchange about this subject, especially, but then outside the track, it’s not like we have been spending so much time together yet. But that obviously will happen once he joins the team with all the extra duty we have outside the track, we’ll get to know each other even more.”

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