Former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley expects to see Charles Leclerc step up in 2025 alongside Lewis Hamilton.
The Briton even expects the Monegasque to come to the level of the seven-time F1 world champion who celebrated his 40th birthday today.
“It’s a completely different situation, but it’s like Felipe Massa in 2006 against Michael Schumacher” Smedley told the Formula For Success podcast. “He was the apprentice and it was normal for him to be beaten by Michael and then, at the end of the year, he beat him on merit in qualifying. He beat him in some races fortuitously. “
“I think we’re in a similar situation with Charles and if Charles isn’t the one who gets away by making too many mistakes and wasting his potential, then it’s a win-win situation.”
“You have this seven-time world champion, a guy who can learn from him, and eventually become the real champion himself. At this point, Lewis is ready to retire and exit out the left, and now you have this fully formed world champion who will become a winning machine.”
Smedley also believes that age will come to hamper Hamilton at some point, and that it’s not possible to prevent it: “I think there’s also another point in this chronological trajectory – and please don’t hate me for saying this, because it’s just physiological – and that is that Lewis is starting to slow down a little. We don’t know when that will happen.”
“It’s definitely not in the next year or two, because if you look at how strong he is psychologically, how motivated he is, how fit he is physically – look at how he takes care of him – it’s not for now But isn’t it a win-win situation for Ferrari?
“He’s going to feel a very different dynamic and a very different relationship than he felt with Carlos Sainz, for example, where they were two peers, both at very similar stages of their careers and both needing to beat each other. Charles has a little margin, he is facing a seven-time world champion.
