Why Leclerc and Norris are on my mind
Also, there's an F1 politics issue that I think everyone should know about.
The F1 world is always a bit quieter when the sport takes its mid-year summer break. Still, this week, my thoughts dwelled on the futures of two drivers that many would say are destined for world championships: Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc.
Norris and Leclerc are alike in the sense that they’re both very intertwined with one historic team, McLaren and Ferrari respectively. They have the same goal: lead their historic team back to glory, much in the way that Michael Schumacher did with Ferrari in the 2000s. So far, the goal hasn’t worked out for either Leclerc or Norris, and it begs the question, is sticking it out with these teams really in their best interest?
Norris admitted to Sky Sports F1 this week that leaving McLaren crossed his mind earlier this year when the team wasn’t troubling the points. He said:
“In the back of my mind, there's that impatient game of, 'do I stick it out for another few years, or is it time to look at something different? … But the more we achieve things like we have done over the past few weeks, the more I'm very confident with the decision I made to stay until 2025, and the more confident I am that we can achieve our goals together in the future.”
Norris confirmed multiple times in the article that he remained committed to McLaren, a position which has likely only strengthened with the team’s upturn in performance in recent races. That turnaround has probably helped McLaren enormously in their bid to hang on to Norris.
Earlier in the year, I would’ve said he should been searching for a way out of his McLaren contract. Norris is a talented driver who would surely be in high demand. I thought he’d actually be one of the best candidates to replace Sergio Perez at Red Bull.
But, my view has changed in recent weeks. With McLaren’s on-track turnaround, their leadership reshuffle, a couple of significant hirings, and the knowledge that their new wind tunnel is nearing completion, Norris’ ongoing faith in McLaren looks to have far better odds of one day paying off. Additionally, McLaren clearly wants Norris to stay, whereas if he went to Red Bull, he’d be heading to a team clearly geared towards Max Verstappen.
Meanwhile, GP Racing magazine published an insightful feature (paywalled) earlier this week about Charles Leclerc and his future at Ferrari. It’s definitely worth a read if you have a subscription, and its conclusions are roughly similar to my thoughts on what Leclerc should do.
I’m yet to be wholeheartedly convinced that Ferrari has everything in place to return itself to championship-winning ways, so - in a perfect world - I would say Leclerc should be looking elsewhere on the grid. To that end, a swap with Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes was bandied about earlier this year.
But, looking at the situation realistically, Hamilton will most likely stay at Mercedes, closing that door - and Leclerc partnering with Verstappen at Red Bull just doesn’t seem possible either. What I’m trying to say is that Leclerc doesn’t have an abundance of options outside of Ferrari. He has little choice but to sit tight, for now.
In other news
There’s an off-track F1 story rumbling away that I think everyone should know about. This summer break is a good time to bring it up.
It relates to capital expenditure (capex) under the cost cap. That’s money teams can spend on a major infrastructure upgrade or a new facility, for example. It’s been reported by Autosport that Williams team boss James Vowles led the quest for a loosening of the cost cap rules, having discovered how out-of-date some infrastructure is at Williams, which he took control of earlier this year.
Currently, each team’s capex is capped at $36 million every four years, according to Autosport. Smaller teams believe this isn’t enough for them to catch the larger teams, who already had cutting-edge facilities before the cost cap was introduced. In theory, the inferior facilities at small teams are now harder to address because of the capex limit.
This is something that needs to be addressed because the whole point of the cost cap was to even the playing field in F1 - and this is doing the exact opposite.
Discussions about what could be done were held just before the Belgian Grand Prix - but a solution wasn’t found. According to Autosport, no conclusions were made and the matter has been pushed to a committee to discuss.
Vowles told Autosport the meeting “went round in circles” while Mercedes boss Toto Wolff claimed other teams jumped on the bandwagon started by Williams, derailing the discussions.
All of this matters tremendously because it’s becoming clear that - with regard to capex - the cost cap has made life harder for small teams. F1 introduced the cap to give privateers a chance against the big manufacturers. This capex issue is an unintended consequence of the cap, which is hindering its ultimate goal. If F1 really believes in levelling the playing field, there has to be a solution soon.