Rob Smedley, former Ferrari engineer and Williams director, showered Charles Leclerc with praise and compared him to Michael Schumacher
Charles Leclerc is having a special season when it comes to performance. Even though he is getting further and further away from Max Verstappen in the fight for the world title, the Monegasque is rarely blamed for the misadventures of his red car. According to former Ferrari engineer and Williams engineering director Rob Smedley, Leclerc has the lead of seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher.
The former engineer from Schumacher's days at Ferrari compared Charles' leadership ability to Schumacher's, and furthermore he rated the entire generation of young F1 drivers very highly.
"Just like Max and Lewis they are capable of raising the level of the whole team by leading others to improvement and transmitting their winning spirit. He has the same ability as Michael Schumacher in his Ferrari years, when he was a catalyst surrounded by Jean Todt, Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne," he assessed to the Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport.
"From drivers [like Schumacher] comes the impetus for teams to react to mistakes and thus improve," he said.
"Leclerc and Verstappen excite too much. Charles wins the audience because he has a normal story, he is not the son of a rich family in Monte Carlo. And also comes a fascinating generation that Norris and Gasly are part of," he said.
Smedley also gave his opinion about the new Formula 1 regulations and was very excited. According to the engineer, the right thing to do is to make fine adjustments and not change too much for the coming years.
"We started with many fans, from whom emerges the desire to see more fights on the track. F1 looked for a solution to reduce the negative effect of turbulence when trying to overtake. They studied the dynamic fluid of the cars, putting one behind the other, and came up with the only solution with the FIA, from which the teams started to design their cars with respect to the new regulations," he followed.
"It's good to listen to feedback, it's always like that when something new comes into effect, and in this case it's huge. But the indications tell us it's going in the right direction. These ground effect cars are already as fast as the 2021 cars, and towards the end of the season they will be able to overtake more easily," he finished.
Formula One returns next weekend, July 1-3, at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix.