19 April 2023 , 11:01
934
0
Veteran Formula 1 journalist Peter Windsor thinks there is one other driver on the current grid who is "up there" with Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen in terms of talent.
They are the two biggest names in the sport and are regarded by many as the best drivers F1 currently has to offer. No-one other than Hamilton and Verstappen has become world champion since 2016, when the Mercedes star was pipped by his team-mate Nico Rosberg.
But there is still plenty of talent dotted around the rest of the grid, including a few who have been earmarked as potential title-winners. Two of those racers are George Russell, Hamilton's current partner at Mercedes, and Ferrari star Charles Leclerc.
Windsor was comparing the driving styles of the two on his YouTube channel when he expressed his belief that the Monegasque can match the best racers. "I think they both have absolutely the raw speed," he said of Russell and Leclerc.
"I've always bracketed Charles up there with Lewis and Max. I think he has all those things that the great racing drivers have and it shows in his driving and it shows in his ability to put in amazing qualifying laps even if the car isn't great – Melbourne aside.
Sebastian Vettel warns of looming F1 ban and is "very worried about the future"
"It shows in his ability to just get into a groove in the race, manage the variables and bring the car home – assuming Ferrari don't mess up the strategy too much. Absolutely Charles can do that and I think George as well.
"George is slightly different in that he's just got this incredible pace which is absolutely on the edge. He's got less margin with which to play when things don't go quite the way maybe the engineers would predict with the setup of the car or when the variables come into play.
Peter Windsor thinks Charles Leclerc is 'up there' with Hamilton and Verstappen (HOCH ZWEI/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)"I don't think George has got quite as big a vocabulary as Charles in that respect, but he's so quick and he's so courageous and brave and confident. The way George drives he does need to have a touch of bravery, whereas I don't think the great, great drivers – Lewis, Max, Charles – need necessarily to be brave because they're manipulating the car.
"They're anticipating what the car's going to do, whereas George is one of these guys that's so confident in his own ability that he will push the car to a point where he's not exactly sure what it's going to do, but he knows he can handle it. And that's fine – until he doesn't handle it. It won't be a big moment, it'll be just a slight thing, 'I didn't get that quite right'.
"And the next corner or next lap he'll leave a tad bit of margin, whereas a Charles will just let that get into the brain cells and just compute it into what he needs to be doing to manage the car to make sure he's ready for that when it happens next time, rather than just backing away from it. I think that's the very subtle difference between the two."