Leclerc: Not having team leader at Ferrari is 'good'

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Charles Leclerc insists he's happy that Ferrari aren't designating a number one driver at the outset of the 2021 season.

Following Sebastian Vettel's departure from the team over the winter, Leclerc is being joined at Maranello by Carlos Sainz.

But despite being the senior driver in this year's line-up with two wins and seven pole positions since he joined the Scuderia in 2019, Leclerc is happy not to be in the spotlight as the de facto team leader.

Read also: Leclerc vows to 'play it smart' with Sainz to push Ferrari

“While I’ve spent more time in Ferrari than Carlos did [and] I have more experience with Ferrari, I don’t think there is a clear leader,” Leclerc told the media during a pre-season testing press conference in Bahrain.

“I am here in F1 to fight against the best and I think Carlos is extremely talented," he continued. "We will just push each other to perform better every time we are on track.

“Carlos is bringing experience from other teams," he pointed out. "That is very interesting, and that's also giving us new roads to explore.

"I’ve never spent as much time as I did with him before I started the season, as I did with other team-mates,” he added. “We are getting on very well and working well together.

“With Carlos we seem to have very similar feeling of the car. Very similar comments. We are going in the same direction, both of us with our comments.

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto had previously stated that neither driver will start with an assumed superiority over the other.

“There is nothing written in the contract of Charles being the leader,” he said before Christmas. "The two will be free to fight."

“Yes, as the team mentioned, there is no clear number one or number two,” Leclerc confirmed on Saturday. “I think Mattia made it clear, and that’s good.

“The mentality of the team itself is still as motivated as last year, really willing to push to better things. Better days are coming soon!"

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.