Former Ferrari sports director Stefano Domenicali, as well as Lamborghini’s current CEO, expressed his appreciation for Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc yesterday, who won the Belgian Grand Prix last Sunday at Spa Francorchamps. 

The Monegasque driver held the lead for almost the entire race, showing himself to be faster than his multiple World Champion team mate, Sebastian Vettel since Friday, whilst carrying on with the psychological trauma of the tragic events of the Saturday F2 support race.

 

The lucidity, the coldness and the impeccable driving style, earned him a mention from Domenicali comparing the youngster to a former great of the Scuderia, Nikki Lauda, during an interview with the Italian Radio station, Radio Anch’io.

“Charles is a great guy, with his head on his shoulders and an extraordinary lucidity that reminds me of that of Niki Lauda.”

Perhaps such a comparison is important, with the former Ferrari and then later McLaren driver who recently passed away, given not only the number of titles won by the Austrian champion but also the intelligence shown over many years of his career, first as a driver, then as a successful manager.

 

“In the junior categories he has always gone fast, but he has shown to be strong above all in his mind,

“We will hear about him for a long time, he has the rub of the mature drivers and Niki Lauda reminds me of him above all.

“How he coldly analyses every situation and for the ability he has to always keep calm.” concludes Domenicali.

 

Domenicali also commented on the victory of his former team:

“Yesterday’s was the victory of the team game, Ferrari managed very well the pit stops but don’t say that Vettel has abdicated. We must be careful about this, I’m sure that at Monza we will see great things.”

On the flip side, former Mercedes F1 champion Nico Rosberg disagrees when commenting on Vettel from his YouTube channel.

“Leclerc is driving so well this year, I think this is going to be a really important breakthrough for him mentally and getting that first win just gives you so much confidence as a driver,” Rosberg said in his post-race debrief.

“And poor Vettel, he was like a Barrichello in that race, just waving past your team-mate and helping him out.

“It’s amazing for a four-time World Champion, that’s impressive so let’s see how that plays out for Vettel, he won’t be very happy with that that’s for sure.

“Vettel is just struggling with the Ferrari car at the moment, especially with the rear end because it’s very nervous, he just needs the confidence on the rear end and he’s not getting it from the car.”

The next race is in Monza, Italy. Ferrari is expected to perform well yet again with the back to back race weekend where a similar low drag spec Spa Ferrari car should repeat it’s speed for the home crowd.

 

 

 

Fatal F2 crash: detailed new analysis on how it happened, is action needed?

Two days after the fatal accident of Anthoine Hubert in Spa, yet more crash videos appear online slowly revealing what really happened: race fans never really saw how exactly the fatal accident came to pass.

Certainly, TJ13 has never been shy to say it’s piece after tragic accidents, the last significant moment being the 2014 Jules Bianchi crash in Japan. Perhaps out of misplaced respect, many professional news outlets haven’t embedded the many minutes of footage doing the rounds on social media from Saturdays’ terrible crash. I will say this at the beginning of my piece that we will embed clips detailing how the accident happened toward the end of this page, so if you are offended by this, I implore you to close the browser now….. READ MORE