01 June 2023 , 05:00
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Lewis Hamilton would be Charles Leclerc's preferred team-mate at Mercedes if he were to quit Ferrari for the Silver Arrows, it has been claimed.
Leclerc's deal with the Scuderia expires at the end of next year, leading to speculation over his future. The Monegasque has admitted that contract renewal talks with Ferrari are yet to begin, which has only heightened the intrigue over what his Formula 1 future might hold.
Mercedes are the team that Leclerc has been most consistently linked with. George Russell is tied down to a multi-year deal with the Silver Arrows, while Hamilton is expected to sign an extension to keep him with the team beyond the end of this season.
Russell is seen as the future of the team, so the assumption is that Leclerc would replace Hamilton if he one day made the switch. But Peter Windsor, a veteran F1 journalist and former manager of Ferrari's now defunct UK operations, thinks Leclerc would prefer for the other Brit to go.
"If you said to Charles right now – if he was here and you're having dinner tonight privately – who would you rather have in the other Merc if you're going to go, George or Lewis? He'd say Lewis, for sure," he asserted in a video on his YouTube channel.
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"George is a serious player but he's got slightly less margin for error and I think he drives very much like Ayrton [Senna] actually, apart from the throttle business. I think he's right on the edge, but there's no margin really with George.
Charles Leclerc has been heavily linked with a Mercedes move (HOCH ZWEI/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)"There's no margin with any of them, except that when something goes slightly wrong a driver who's a manipulative, softer-input driver has got a little bit more of an area with which to play, whereas George doesn't leave much. And he's very quick.
"It would be a big problem for Charles to beat George at Mercedes. I'd be surprised if he does actually, because George knows the team, he knows the whole thing. So as good as Charles is, I don't believe he would outperform George.
"If they've got a Championship-winning car and it was George and Leclerc, I'd put my money on George – in year one." As for whether or not such a move would ever materialise, Mercedes chief Toto Wolff has admitted that Leclerc is "on the radar" but "not for the short or medium term".
And the driver himself insisted there is "zero truth" in the claim that he has been in talks with the Silver Arrows. "For now, I am fully focused on the project I am in today, which is Ferrari, and I fully trust and am confident for the future. Then we will see, but I am fully confident for the project of Ferrari," he said.