Villeneuve ‘stirs’ Leclerc: “Ferrari has to focus on Lewis if it wants to have a minimum chance of winning. The decision is easy to make”
Jacques Villeneuve has already criticized on several occasions Charles Leclerc in recent years. And this time, he did it again after the F1 Barcelona-Catalunya GP on the podcast ‘The F1 Show’ by ‘Sky Sports’just after Lewis Hamilton’s first victory dressed as a Ferrari and the accidents suffered by the Monegasque in Barcelona and before, in Monaco.
“Lewis knows how to win and he knows what it takes to do so. And if he smells the opportunity, there will be no mercy. I think that is where he can make the difference. At the moment, Mercedes is not in a position or allowed to choose one driver over another, while “Ferrari can do it, because it has to focus on Lewis if it wants to have a minimum chance of winning, so the decision is easy to make, since Leclerc is quite far behind (in the overall standings of the World Championship)”said the 1997 world champion.
Jacques did not stop there, he went further by referring to the long time that Leclerc had to get Ferrari to revolve around him before Hamilton arrived. In that sense, the former Canadian driver believes that Hamilton’s resurgence with the 2026 cars, far from the Englishman’s suffering with the previous generation of ground effect cars, has caught the ‘Principino’ off guard.
“Leclerc had time to build the team around him and he didn’t. You have to keep in mind that he arrived at Ferrari after a mediocre season at Sauber and, suddenly, they offered him a gigantic contract, like that of a world champion. Maybe it was too much and too soon?” he expressed.
Lewis woke up, the moment Lewis made that car and that team his own, and went for it without respite, Leclerc was not prepared for that
“He never had to build anything around it. They gave it to him, it was already there. It was fast and that was enough, because the perception was that, anyway, that car couldn’t win a championship. You won a few races, you beat your teammate, who was (Sebastian) Vettel, and everyone was happy,” he added.
“Suddenly, last year Lewis arrives, who was not having a great season. He had a really bad time with the car and the team. It took him a while to adjust to all of this, so Leclerc was quite happy, leaving a good impression with Lewis. But the moment Lewis woke up, the moment Lewis made that car and that team his own, and went for it without letting up, Leclerc was not prepared for that,” he concluded.
