Charles Leclerc must learn from Lando Norris in ‘emotional’ area after winless 2025 Ferrari season

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The 2025 Formula 1 campaign has proved to be another year of frustration for Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.

With just 10 races remaining, Charles Leclerc is the highest-ranked driver in the championship yet to win a race.

Max Verstappen and George Russell have both found a way to beat McLaren this season, and even his Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton has a Sprint Race win under his belt.

Leclerc is approaching 150 Grand Prix starts for Ferrari, and while he finished second in the drivers’ championship in 2022, his efforts to catch Verstappen were all but over after he crashed out of the French Grand Prix.

Martin Brundle once called Leclerc the best qualifier on the grid, but his conversion rate of one win in his last 16 pole positions is a record that will never result in a Monegasque driver becoming a world champion.

That’s not entirely his fault, with Ferrari not as competitive as Red Bull or McLaren in recent years.

However, title candidate Lando Norris does have a championship car at his disposal this year, with McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri seemingly the only person standing between him and the title.

James Hinchcliffe has now told Leclerc what he can learn from the British driver after a tricky 2025 campaign.

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Charles Leclerc needs to learn from Lando Norris’ radio messages at Ferrari

Hinchcliffe was speaking about the 27-year-old on The Red Flags Podcast and said: “Obviously, Leclerc is still a guy that’s so good over a lap.

“And whether it’s him, whether it’s the car, whether it’s the team, it’s just hard to convert those on Sundays for whatever reason. It’s a combination of things.

“I do still think he gets a bit emotional in the race car to his detriment. You heard in Hungary when things were going south, the way he sounds, he just sounds aggravated. He sounds agitated in the car. And that’s not a good position to be in, right?

“It wouldn’t have changed his result there, but there are other examples of it where I compare it to… we talk about how Oscar is this kind of stone cold, lives right in the middle kind of guy in the car.

“You think back to Lando, Hungary last year, he ends up in the lead of the race because of whatever, and they want to give it back to Oscar. And he’s having a very calm discussion about it on the radio. Hey, we need you to switch back. ‘Well, tell him to catch me. I would have undercut him anyway’.

“He wasn’t yelling, he wasn’t screaming, he wasn’t cursing. Even when he was getting royally f—–, he stayed very calm.

“And so I do think that’s an area that Charles could benefit from working on a little bit because he’s not a guy who drives faster when he’s angry. Alonso, I think a guy like Alonso does drive faster when he’s angry.”

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Charles Leclerc’s radio messages are a key indicator of Ferrari’s struggles this season

One of the most telling parts of this season for Ferrari fans has been the way Leclerc and Hamilton have conducted themselves over the team radio.

Hamilton was frustrated during his Ferrari debut in Australia, and while both drivers have explained that emotions are always heightened in these situations, it’s telling that Norris and Piastri sound far happier this year.

Leclerc was particularly angry at Silverstone when he made several tactical errors and finished out of the points after crashing into Carlos Sainz.

This level of ire towards the team may only make a minute impact on his performance, but given how small the margins are, that could be the difference between pole position or P2, or reaching Q3 and being eliminated before the top 10 shootout.

Ferrari sit second in the constructors’ championship but have no doubt taken a step backwards this season, and Leclerc will hope that they can finally produce a title-winning car when the regulations change next season.