Leclerc: An honour to receive praise from Hamilton

Charles Leclerc

Leclerc: An honour to receive praise from Hamilton

Lewis has praised the abilities of his young colleague.

Martin Macdonald

Wednesday 16 October 2019 09:00

Charles Leclerc says it is “an honour” to receive praise from five-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who previously tipped the Monegasque driver for championship glory himself.

The 21-year-old made the move from Sauber (now Alfa Romeo) to Ferrari ahead of the 2019 season and his performances have gained praise as the campaign has gone on, including from Hamilton who told Sky Sports after the Belgian Grand Prix that there was “a lot more greatness” to come from Leclerc.

When asked by Channel 4 after the Japanese GP how he feels about receiving such praise, Leclerc said:

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“Lewis has always been really nice to me and every time he came to see me, it was to say nice things, so to hear these type of things from such champions is always an honour.

“I used to watch Formula 1 and there was always Lewis there, and you are dreaming of one day joining, so to now finally fight with him on-track, and him telling nice things about me, it’s always nice."

As for his own performances in his debut season with the Scuderia, Leclerc has revealed that he made some changes after around nine races in as he wasn’t content with his results.

“Since nine races I can clearly remember that before that I was really unhappy with my qualifying performances,” he admitted.

“I worked quite hard on it to try and improve a few things on the car so the approach with the setup, and on the approach also on myself from Q1 to Q3.

“It had been quite difficult at the beginning in races, maybe my setup was too aggressive for the races, then I changed the approach and now it seems to be better.”