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In the head-to-head battle between Ferrari’s two drivers last season, Charles Leclerc came out on top against Lewis Hamilton.
Despite arriving at Ferrari as a seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton didn’t hit the heights that he or the tifosi would have hoped after his switch from Mercedes.
Charles Leclerc has never truly been in championship contention during his Formula 1 career, but he can’t be written off.
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After just one season at Sauber, Ferrari decided he was ready to replace Kimi Raikkonen before finishing ahead of Sebastian Vettel in the standings the following year.
Leclerc’s Ferrari future has already been questioned, with rival teams beginning to wonder if there might be an opportunity to sign the eight-time race winner if Ferrari’s 2026 car isn’t up to scratch.
While the Monegasque driver finished 86 points ahead of Hamilton last year, it’s believed that the 41-year-old quickly showed Leclerc that he needed to drastically improve in one area behind the scenes at Maranello.
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Lewis Hamilton forced Charles Leclerc to improve his ‘technical professionalism’ last season
A report from Spanish journalist Pedro Fermín Flores on his website shared more details about Ferrari’s start to the 2026 season.
Both Leclerc and Hamilton will spend this week analysing the data from a positive shakedown in Barcelona before heading to Bahrain for the first official test of the year.
Hamilton set the unofficial fastest time at the Circuit de Catalunya, although nothing can be read into the lap times set in the behind-closed-doors test.
Leclerc said: “Now that we’ve driven the real car, we’re going to try to make the simulator data as close to reality as possible.
“Only then will we know that we have a reliable reference to work with in Bahrain.”
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Leclerc was visibly disappointed in the media pen on multiple occasions last year, including when he somehow missed out on the podium in Hungary. After the final round of pit stops, he looked like the favourite to win the race.
He will hope that the SF-26 doesn’t have the same fundamental issues as last year’s car, but Hamilton’s presence should make that less likely.
It’s believed that Hamilton ‘has forced’ Leclerc ‘to raise his level of technical professionalism’, meaning that Ferrari should have even more detailed and accurate feedback to use from both drivers to help develop their new car.
If Ferrari can nail the correlation between testing, the wind tunnel and the simulator, then a first Grand Prix victory since Mexico City in 2024 should be just around the corner.
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Leclerc and Hamilton are both more than capable of challenging for the world championship this year in the right car.
Hamilton will be delighted to leave the ground-effect era of cars behind him, as he was never able to fully extract the maximum potential out of them with his driving style.
However, Ferrari have been warned about developing their new car in two separate directions, similar to McLaren creating a suspension tweak that only Lando Norris used last season.
It coincided with an uptick in the British driver’s form that saw him eventually overhaul Oscar Piastri’s lead in the championship.
Ferrari will have faith in the fact that they have two of the best drivers on the grid right now, and will be desperate to do everything possible not to upset either of them, especially as the driver market is expected to be frenetic over the next 12 months.
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