Remember how the pressure of improving the W13 and challenging for the title got to Lewis Hamilton last year? This came after the Briton lost the championship to Max Verstappen the previous year. Charles Leclerc seems to be in a similar state as fingers are being pointed toward his shaky confidence. Amid all this, Ferrari’s biased radio message was analyzed. What came up after the analysis? Why has Leclerc’s confidence taken a hit?

Charles Leclerc lost the chance to fight for the 2022 title because of Ferrari’s strategic mess-ups and reliability issues. The Monegasque still seems shaken and hasn’t had the best start to the 2023 season. Failing to qualify for Q3 in the last two races, Leclerc seems to be missing something. The fans had their hearts in their mouths when Ferrari decided not to pit under the safety car when everyone else did. Many thought that it was one of those Ferrari blunders. Surprisingly, the strategy actually paid off. 

Nevertheless, F1 Journalist Peter Windsor still managed to find a flaw in Ferrari’s approach toward the race whilst pointing fingers at Leclerc’s shaky confidence. Mid-race, Carlos Sainz radioed his team, suggesting how he was faster than Charles Leclerc. However, Ferrari asked Sainz to maintain his position. Leclerc was informed about Sainz being asked to hold positions, followed by multiple radio calls from the team asking Leclerc for a fast, clean stint. As Windsor pointed out, questions were raised about Leclerc’s confidence and Ferrari’s biased radio calls. 

According to the video uploaded on Peter Windsor’s YouTube channel, he said, “There were some very odd radio messages to Charles, I thought today. A lot of it was ‘Don’t worry, Carlos is not racing you, he’s not going to challenge you’ As if a guy of Charles Stature needs to be told that. But I guess if they said that to him twice, it must be a talking point in the debriefs.”

Talking about how the team demanded a clean stint from Leclerc, he said, “Secondly, it was like ‘What we want from you now Charles, because we’ve told Carlos not to race you, we want a nice clean fast stint’. I mean you’re saying that to Charles Leclerc. Do they think that’s he’s never going to drive as fast and cleanly as he can or indeed he’s going to make a mistake. He’s not going to make a mistake because they’ve told him to drive cleanly. I mean it’s a bit juvenile.”

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Charles Leclerc is undoubtedly a fast driver. But at times like this when one isn’t matching his potential, these self-doubts and confidence hits are but natural. Whilst the race was good for the Monegasque, the frustration was clearly visible when Ferrari messed up his qualifying. 

Charles Leclerc was frustrated with Ferrari’s call during the Canadian GP weekend. 

The mixed qualifying conditions in Canada meant drama was due. And drama is what we got at the Scuderia side of the paddock. Charles Leclerc, who got out in Q1 at the Spanish GP, was again a victim of the changing track conditions. Despite asking his team to put him on slicks at the right time, Ferrari refused, and it was only a matter of time before the conditions got worse again. Leclerc was out on the track with the wrong tire at the wrong time. The Monegasque expresses his frustration. 

According to Formula1.com, Charles Leclerc said, “I’m very frustrated with the qualifying. Not everything is [about the tires] obviously because some others did exactly the same thing and still went through into Q3 [on intermediate tires]. But we are just making our lives so much more difficult. I’m very frustrated now and honestly, we need to improve and do a step forward otherwise we’re always going to be disappointed so yeah – we need to improve now.”

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What do you think? Has Charles Leclerc’s confidence taken a hit?