In their final joint campaign, Ferrari's Leclerc searches for form as Sainz hits his stride (2024)

SUZUKA, Japan — Crossing the line to take fourth place in the Japanese Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc felt a certain degree of relief.

The Ferrari driver had pulled off an ambitious pit strategy, effectively a one-stop after the early red flag, at one of the highest degradation tracks of the year. Given that both strategy calls and tire management have been weak points for Ferrari in recent years, it was a good sign of the team’s progress.

But once again, Leclerc trailed his teammate, Carlos Sainz, who finished six seconds up the road in P3. The result maintained Sainz’s 100% podium record in 2024, having finished third in Bahrain and won in Australia and put him 3-0 up in the head-to-head against Leclerc. Sainz is only four points behind Leclerc in the drivers’ standings despite missing Jeddah due to appendicitis.

It’s a surprising shift, especially in light of Ferrari’s decision to drop Sainz for 2025 in order to sign Lewis Hamilton. In a sport where teammate comparisons are everything, for Sainz, not Leclerc, to be leading its efforts so far this year is unexpected.

The margins between Sainz and Leclerc in their three seasons to date as teammates have always been fine, yet they’ve typically swung in Leclerc’s favor. Generally regarded as the quicker driver, Leclerc has always been viewed as the leader of Ferrari’s future, after coming through the ranks of its young driver academy. But on the two occasions since the start of 2023 that Red Bull has dropped the ball — Singapore in 2023 and Australia in 2024 — Sainz has been the one to snare victory.

Sainz is in the form of his F1 career right now. He is making a very strong case to land a seat with a top team for 2025, aided by the fact Ferrari now has a consistent and, importantly, quick car with which he can perform. Leclerc, meanwhile, needs to understand where he’s struggling so he too can maximize the qualities of the SF-24.

It’s not like it’s been a poor start for Leclerc this year — he’s not yet finished outside the top four — but he has always been hard on himself, focusing on the negatives to improve and make use of his undeniable natural speed. It meant even when saying he felt “very happy” with fourth after the race in Japan, believing it was the best possible result, he was quick to look at where things had gone wrong.

“Australia and here, race pace has not been a problem,” Leclerc said. “It’s my qualifying pace, which is not something that I have been very used to in my career. Normally, it’s pretty good on a Saturday.”

Leclerc has always been a specialist over a single lap, often wringing every last millisecond out of a car when it mattered in Q3. He has scored nearly five times as many poles (23) as wins (5), albeit in part down to Ferrari’s own race pace struggles in recent years. He’s out-qualified his teammate at two-thirds of races through his F1 career (67.4%) and scored over three times as many poles as his teammates (23-7). Of the current grid, only Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen have more pole positions. Unsurprisingly, Leclerc comfortably leads the overall qualifying head-to-head against Sainz, by 44 to 25.

Yet qualifying proved Leclerc’s undoing at Suzuka. A slow first lap in Q1 meant he had to use up another set of soft tires to ensure he reached Q2, limiting him to a single Q3 lap, in the middle of the session when the track was empty. The result was P8 on the grid, albeit just a tenth off Sainz in fourth place. It compromised Leclerc’s race at a circuit where track position is king, forcing him into the one-stop that was impressive to pull off but put the podium out of reach.

In Australia too, qualifying left Leclerc on the back foot to Sainz. There, he was a quarter of a second back in fourth place while Sainz started on the front row. It meant when Verstappen’s brake failed, it was Sainz, not Leclerc, who was in position to capitalize.

Leclerc believes the root of the issue is his tire preparation in qualifying. “Two races in a row now, I’ve been struggling to put the tires in the right window,” he said. In qualifying, the out lap has a significant impact on the flying lap, as drivers look to get the tires into the optimum temperature window. Too cold and they’ll fail to offer the necessary grip; too hot and they’ll overheat, causing the car to slide.

They’re small yet significant details, ones that have denied Leclerc that little bit of extra pace he needs. He admitted that his Q3 lap in Japan felt “really good” in the co*ckpit, “but the grip that was available from the tire was just not there.”

“This is because I do a bad job on the lap before, which is very frustrating,” Leclerc added. “You finish a lap and you are happy, but actually you are nowhere. I’ve got to focus on that.”

It’s not something that is overly concerning Leclerc. “It’s very fine, very little differences,” he said. “Whenever I’ve focused on something, I’ve improved quite quickly on it. So I’m not too concerned. But I need to do the step forward for Shanghai now.” The fact that China, in two weeks’ time, is a sprint weekend with two qualifying sessions gives Leclerc added time to try and understand where he is lacking that comfort.

Four races, four podiums 🏆💯

From Maranello to the track we’re proud of the whole team for the hard work this year 💪 pic.twitter.com/ArkLlam4ix

— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) April 8, 2024

Team principal Fred Vasseur was fairly dismissive of any worries about Leclerc’s qualifying form, simply saying his driver was aware that Saturday at Suzuka wasn’t good. “You can’t be happy when your teammate is P4 and you are P8,” Vasseur said, before pointing at the small gap between the two Ferrari drivers.

“It’s not a disaster, that you are half a second or six-tenths off,” Vasseur added. “He will have two qualys in China. Keep in mind that he was seven times in a row in the first four (since Austin last year). It’s fine.”

China should offer both Leclerc and Sainz a decent opportunity. The track has a number of long, sweeping corners, and requires careful management of the front tires to handle front graining, factors that favored Ferrari in Australia. There are definite unknowns given F1 has not raced there in five years, and the sprint weekend format limits time to prepare, but the expectation is Ferrari will be a step closer to Red Bull.

Sainz and Leclerc have pushed each other on throughout their time together at Ferrari, forcing both to make improvements and progress. Even through their final season as teammates, that’s only set to continue — especially as Sainz’s form has Leclerc analyzing one of his traditional strengths, and leads to inevitable questions over its decision to let him go for 2025.

(Lead photo of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc: Mark Thompson, Clive Mason/Getty Images)

Luke Smith is a Senior Writer covering Formula 1 for The Athletic. Luke has spent 10 years reporting on Formula 1 for outlets including Autosport, The New York Times and NBC Sports, and is also a published author. He is a graduate of University College London. Follow Luke on Twitter @LukeSmithF1