Charles Leclerc’s commanding victory at the Australian Grand Prix gave David Coulthard a “flashback” to the Michael Schumacher era at Ferrari.
The Monegasque completed his first Grand Slam in Melbourne, claiming pole, the win after leading every lap and the fastest lap at Albert Park, crossing the finish line 20 seconds clear of Sergio Perez.
Leclerc’s result also gave him a 34-point lead in the championship after just three races, bigger than any advantage Max Verstappen had last year, and Coulthard lavished praise on the 24-year-old and his team.
“I had a little bit of a shiver actually, a flashback to when Michael was dominant in the Ferrari.” the Scot chuckled on Channel 4. “All my fears came back again!”
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He added: “We’ve got to acknowledge he [Leclerc] is a quality driver, a great human being.
“Ferrari has worked hard, and [team principal] Mattia Binotto, what a cool character he’s been under all the pressure of the lack of performance over the last two years.
“That [Leclerc’s drive] was dominant. That really was an impressive display.”
Ahead of the race weekend, long-time Ferrari test driver Marc Gene suggested F1 was seeing an upgraded version of Leclerc this season, without the emotion that has driven him before.
But Charles doesn’t think that’s the case.
“One thing that I don’t like, I’ve seen it everywhere, and I don’t like to see it is ‘Charles Leclerc 2.0’ and this is not the case,” he said last weekend.
“Yeah I’ve had a growth from years to years that is linear; last year… I never like to put luck into place but honestly, there were two races in particular [Monaco and Hungary] where I lost many valuable points that weren’t too much in my control, and this paid off massively [in the standings] at the end of the year.
“And also fighting between fourth and seventh position, when you are performing very well nobody is noticing it, which makes it quite tricky.
“Of course, I probably am even better now that I am fighting for wins as this is what I like to do and it is great to be back here, but overall I think it is just a linear growth years from years and there’s not a huge step from last year.”
