Jock Clear was head of the Ferrari academy when Charles Leclerc was promoted to F1 and then to the team in 2019. The Scuderia performance engineer is convinced the Monegasque has the potential to be world champion
“Absolutely, he has everything it takes to be world champion. I said it from 2018, obviously we worked with him at the academy. We saw all the good things at all stages” Clear remembers.
“He has pace in qualifying. My God, I honestly think he’s the best qualifying driver we’ve seen. It’s hard to go back as far as Michael [Schumacher]Mika [Häkkinen] and others, but he is the best in qualifying, that’s for sure.”
“And his race management, if you look at Monza, is just exceptional. When everything is in place, he is able to deliver. It’s one of the things that I have often struggled with, without mention names, but if I give you the words, you will know exactly whose mouth they came from.”
“There was a lot of ‘we’re paying him a lot of money, he just has to drive the ‘king’s car’. And if you think that’s all it’s about, you’re missing out, because there are a lot of things that need to happen for everything to line up.”
Leclerc could have aimed for the world title in 2022, but Red Bull and Max Verstappen crashed the end of the season, and Clear remembers that too many things were going wrong within the Scuderia to have the level hoped for the world title.
“Was it really a chance for Ferrari to win the world championship? It has to be said yes, because at one point we were 40 points ahead in the drivers’ championship and we were in a position to beat Max on many circuits so we weren’t ready as a team.”
“I think the way the development happened meant Red Bull outperformed us at the end of the year. “Certainly everything wasn’t aligned, but Charles would say there were some things that weren’t at championship level that year, despite everything we did.”
“But that’s exactly the problem. You won’t win a championship until you’re all at that level. It’s unfair to say Mercedes won all those championships because they had the best car. They had everything what was best.”
“It’s the same thing with Max over the last three years: He’s been very good, but Red Bull has been very good. So when Charles is going to perform at this level, we have to perform at this level with him. And when I confidently say ‘yes, he is’, when we are all at that level, I know he will perform at that level.”
“I know he can do the right thing when we are all at this level. So when we are in position and we as a team deliver a car consistently to compete for a championship, that that I think we’re about to do now, Charles will be up to it.”
