Leclerc risks wasting his best years with new Ferrari deal

Charles Leclerc’s loyalty to the Ferrari Formula 1 team is admirable, and rare, but it risks wasting the best years after extending his contract with the team into what is understood to be the 2030s.

Leclerc is arguably the most unfulfilled talent of his generation already. At this rate, Mercedes duo George Russell and Kimi Antonelli will outstrip his tally of eight wins. He was already surpassed by McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri last year.

And the statistical anomaly that is Leclerc’s 27:8 pole-to-win ratio, and the fact that his 52 grand prix podiums comprise only those eight victories, play into the bigger problem: that there is no trend suggesting Leclerc is any closer to the ultimate goal of winning a world championship.

Since joining Ferrari, his final finishing position has been 4th, 8th, 7th, 2nd, 5th, 3rd, 5th. He sits 3rd in the 2026 standings after five races, just ahead of Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton. The bottom line is at Ferrari, Leclerc has never been able to be more than a driver who is usually very close to the front but only rarely at the front.

Sport doesn’t fairly reward ability, and this is just at the extreme end of the sort of thing that can happen when an F1 driver never ends up in the right place at the right time.

Still, for Leclerc to not even have had a full championship chance is a waste, even if you did want to argue that Leclerc has not been able to affect meaningful change in Ferrari’s fortunes (although given multiple team leaders have failed in this regard, and that is their actual job, it would seem harsh to assume Leclerc somehow should have).

So, the question should be asked, why has a 28-year-old who should be entering what would stereotypically be his prime years as an F1 driver, just committed those years with a renewed deal, for a team that has consistently only produced those sorts of numbers for him?

Obviously, there is no immediate better alternative on the table. So a medium-term recommitment firming up his Ferrari contract beyond 2026 is straightforward in that regard. And he will be extremely well recompensed for committing longer-term - there is only so much sympathy that can be afforded someone willingly signing a deal worth tens of millions of euros a year!

Money is not Leclerc’s biggest driver, though. His big motivation is to be a world champion. What this new deal makes tough to determine though, given it supposedly runs into the start of the next decade, is whether that motivation is outdone by his desire to be world champion with Ferrari.

Leclerc loves the idea of being an F1 Ferrari ‘lifer’ as even his rookie season with Sauber was with Ferrari power and he was obviously only there on loan. He has grown up with the team and sentiment can be an incredibly powerful factor.

Leclerc can’t be world champion with Ferrari if he leaves Ferrari. He might not be world champion if he stays.

Some Ferrari cynics would say that’s a definite, but it isn’t guaranteed, and it seems Leclerc is willing to risk the possibility it never comes together for the chance that it some day might.

Of course, it’s not now or never for Leclerc. If he isn’t a world champion by, say, 2030 - which his Ferrari deal runs to in some form or another - that’s not to say he couldn’t win a title with Ferrari with the next deal.

Leclerc will look to the man he now shares the team with - Hamilton - for evidence that, if he does everything right, there is a decade or more of trying, trying, and trying again.

But the other way to look at it is if it hasn’t worked in eight seasons of believing in the project, and doesn’t work in three or four more, will Leclerc’s confidence not finally be eroded? Will he finally start to seriously evaluate alternatives and put himself in the shop window or will Ferrari be able to take advantage of his loyalty indefinitely because Leclerc can never quite bring himself to break ties?

This is the kind of partnership that it would be wonderful to see achieve the ultimate goal. What a story - from sporting and human perspectives - a Leclerc-led Ferrari championship would be. And for now Leclerc can afford to keep believing.

He’s in a holding pattern for the next year or two, which probably made this easier.

The years beyond that could be too valuable to waste.