F1: Ferrari ace Charles Leclerc slammed for being too nice, not 'top dog' material

Scuderia Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc finished second in the 2022 F1 Drivers' World Championship behind Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen. The Monegasque was the early favourite to claim the trophy, but racing veteran Tom Coronel thinks that he is too nice to win the championship.

According to the World Touring Car driver, Leclerc is like "an ideal son-in-law, a Labrador." This is Coronel's way of stating that the Ferrari ace is not top dog material. He even called Leclerc "over-hyped" compared to teammate Carlos Sainz.

"Personally I have always been more of a fan of his teammate Carlos Sainz, who had a lot of bad luck," the Dutchman wrote for Formule1.nl.

He stated further that Leclerc "disappointed" him in 2022 especially after the latter was praised at the start of the season for being the top championship contender. However, it may be remembered that after Ferrari's strong start to the season, things unravelled for them very quickly.

Leclerc was clearly always fast, but a combination of his own mistakes and a number of reliability issues and Ferrari's strategy blunders practically handed the championship to Verstappen. On top of that, Red Bull was able to sort out their own reliability issues very quickly and their strategy was impeccable throughout the season.

Despite Leclerc's talent, his mistakes and Ferrari's troubles meant that Verstappen ran away with the title fairly comfortably. One of the personal mistakes that Leclerc made was how he crashed out from the lead at the French Grand Prix. That was also the race where Verstappen admitted that he knew the title was his to lose.

Coronel thinks that Leclerc's actions after making a mistake and his reactions towards his team's mistakes make it clear that he lacks the cutting edge. "Where is the emotion? You then have to swing your helmet through the pit box and headbutt the motorman! Leclerc is much too neat for that," he said.

Leclerc finished 62 points ahead of Sainz in 2022, and several places ahead in the championship. Despite this, Coronel is convinced that the Monegasque should not automatically be considered to be Ferrari's number one driver.

"People pretend that Sainz is second driver at Ferrari, but look at the scoring – Sainz was in front in 2021. Leclerc gets too much credit for me, compared to Sainz. Yes, in the beginning he competed for the world title, but in the end you have to conclude that he is not quite there," he insisted.