‘Why wouldn’t Ferrari sign him?’ Rivals respond to Leclerc deal reports

Red Bull’s Christian Horner and Mercedes’ Toto Wolff agree it would only be natural for rivals Ferrari to sign up Charles Leclerc to a new long-term deal.

Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport on Monday reported that five-time race winner Leclerc, whose current contract runs to the end of 2024, had reached agreement on a five-year deal to extend his stay at Maranello to 2029.

Team-mate Carlos Sainz, the only non-Red Bull driver to win a race in 2023, is also out of contract at the end of next season with the newspaper reporting he is seeking a two-year extension in his own renewal talks.

Ferrari have described the report as “speculation”.

But last week, in a potentially telling disclosure, John Elkann, Ferrari’s chairman, did state at parent company Exor’s investor day “they will stay with us” in regards to Leclerc and Sainz.

Leclerc, who finished the 2023 campaign particularly strongly, has been viewed as Ferrari’s leading light ever since they handed him his current five-year term at his impressive first season at the team next to Sebastian Vettel, who at the time had been their undisputed star driver.

The 26-year-old has been loosely linked with both Mercedes and Red Bull in the past, were he to ever look elsewhere and either team have a seat vacant, but Leclerc has regularly spoken of his desire to win with Ferrari, who last won the F1 drivers’ title in 2007.

When asked about the Ferrari renewal report by Sky Sports News, Horner said: “It’s totally natural.

“He’s a great driver and I’m sure they’ll want to keep hold of him.

“They’d be crazy if they didn’t.”

Asked the same question, Mercedes counterpart Wolff said:” I don’t know anything about the contractual situation there, but he’s a great guy and why wouldn’t Ferrari sign him?”

The Red Bull and Mercedes chiefs were speaking in London’s Leicester Square on the red carpet at the premiere of Ferrari, a Sky Original film set in 1957 in a key year in company founder Enzo Ferrari’s life, which hits UK cinemas on Boxing Day.

Can Ferrari challenge Red Bull in 2024?

Any new long-term deal for Leclerc at Maranello would certainly reflect well on the Monegasque’s confidence in the team’s ability to deliver him a car to challenge for his maiden world championship in future years.

Red Bull absolutely dominated the 2023 campaign, winning all but one race when Sainz triumphed in Singapore, but Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur took encouragement from his squad’s progression through the year after a difficult start.

Speaking after the season-ending Abu Dhabi, when Leclerc finished second to Max Verstappen for the second weekend running but Ferrari were pipped to second in the Constructors’ Championship by Mercedes after chasing their rivals down in the second half of the season, Vasseur said of 2024: “I don’t know if it will be better next year – nobody knows. You know what you are doing but in this business it’s always a matter of comparison.

“You can make one second [improvement] but if the others are doing 1.5 [seconds] you look stupid. If they are doing five tenths you look the hero. At the end of the day it’s a matter of comparison, let’s focus on ourselves and trying to do the best.

“I don’t want to be too optimistic or too pessimistic. I think it was probably one of the issues that we had last season [being too optimistic]. We just have to be focused on what we are doing and not to think about the outcome of the championship before race one or to see where the prize-giving ceremony is before Bahrain.”

But pointing to the progress Ferrari made since late summer, Vasseur added: “Red Bull is still faster than us and we still need to improve. But at least compared to Zandvoort [in August] or to some other events we did a big step forward.”

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