Leclerc Explained Why He Avoided Emulating Hamilton’s Driving Style During Ferrari’s 2026 Campaign

Charles Leclerc has revealed why he chose not to replicate Lewis Hamilton’s driving style while navigating the challenges of Ferrari’s 2026 Formula 1 car.

With Formula 1 transitioning to new regulations this season, Leclerc has at times found the SF-26 difficult to master. After the Monegasque driver clearly outperformed his team-mate Hamilton last year, their head-to-head battle has been far more closely matched in 2026.

Looking at qualifying as the clearest measure of pure pace, Hamilton leads the head-to-head 10-9, though Leclerc has posted an average advantage of 0.023s — a figure distorted by the fact that he failed to set a time after crashing out of Q3 in Barcelona.

That particular session came during Leclerc’s most troubled stretch. He was outqualified by Hamilton four times across the Canadian, Monaco and Catalan rounds, collecting just 16 points compared to Hamilton’s 64. The 28-year-old attributed this to “something that was extremely difficult to deal with on the car” during an appearance on the Beyond The Grid podcast. The situation was further complicated by a puzzling crash at his home race, which he blamed on brake supplier Brembo.

“When things don’t go well, like it did in Montreal and Monaco, it’s not only about the results,” Leclerc said.

“For Barcelona, it was better. And Barcelona, of course, in qualifying, I have no excuses. That’s just me pushing the limit too much and too far.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

“Of course, I was disappointed, but the feeling was there. So when the feeling is there, you are a lot more confident as a driver. But Montreal and Monaco, the feeling was really not there. Like, whatever the result I will have done on the Sunday, I didn’t really care about this.

“What’s important for me is that when I get into the car, I get the right feeling and I know that I can do my job properly by driving just naturally and not overthinking things.

“And so when you’ve got two races consecutive where things are getting tough and you don’t have the feeling, you’ve got two options, really. One is to try and find a way around with the set-up and with the car and trying to fit your natural driving style more. The other is just change your driving style.

“And in my case, I have Lewis as a team-mate, who was having incredible form – and who is in incredible form – so I knew that his driving style was working. Surely it was working,” Leclerc continued, speaking ahead of the Italian Grand Prix. “So I still had that option on trying. And I push on the word ‘trying’ because it’s always difficult to try and reproduce a driving style.

“It’s not as easy as, ‘Oh, Lewis is doing that, I’ll just do the same’. Lewis is an incredibly talented driver and has a natural driving style that is his and he’s the best in the world for that particular driving style. And so to reproduce that is very tricky.

“I tried to push more into trying to find ways to have this car a bit more fitted to my driving style. And I found a few things in the data that were just not working.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Madring

“Again, in Formula 1, it’s not always black and white. It’s not like you sit in front of your computer, look at the data and say, ‘Oh, this is one tenth and a half of a second, let’s change that and we’ll gain one tenth’. It’s not as easy as that. It’s intuition, it’s feeling, it’s things that you might think, ‘Okay, this is what makes me a bit less comfortable in the car, and if I improve that feeling, then performance will come’.

“And so I saw two, three things on the Friday night in Silverstone, changed those for the Saturday in qualifying, and the feeling was a lot better and even better than it was in Barcelona. And from that moment, I felt it went towards the right direction.”

Leclerc’s breakthrough at Silverstone saw him qualify on the front row for the British Grand Prix, 0.175s behind Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and 0.172s ahead of Hamilton. The Ferrari driver took the lead at the start and dominated the race to claim his first victory since 2024.

A switch to Carbone Industrie brake discs is understood to have contributed to Leclerc’s resurgence in form, though he clarified that this was not simply a case of returning to the feeling he experienced at the Melbourne season opener, where he had claimed an encouraging podium finish.

“The car is constantly changing, so it’s not like I can really go back to that feeling I had in Melbourne. It’s evolving,” Leclerc clarified.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

Photo by: Rudy Carezzevoli / Getty Images

“But my goal is to get into the car and not overthink. When you overthink, you know that you are losing time on the table because our sport is not a lot about reacting on what’s happening on the car. It’s more about anticipating and feeling the car yours. I mean, getting into a corner, I need to know exactly the way the car will behave so I don’t have to overthink about things.”

Leclerc has been the third-highest scorer over the latest six rounds, dating back to his Silverstone victory, accumulating 88 points to Antonelli’s 121 and Lando Norris’ 107. His record is marred only by an early crash at Monza, as he has finished every other race in the top five.

Meanwhile, Hamilton has scored just 66 points over that same period, though he was forced out of the Madring race due to brake issues.

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