“Yeah, I did my job. But speaking nice f**** me all the f****** time. It’s not being nice, it’s just being respectful, I know I need to shut up but at one point is always the same so, oh my f****** God.”
That was just part of Charles Leclerc’s radio rant after the Las Vegas Grand Prix last weekend, finishing fourth behind teammate Carlos Sainz. The outburst outraged fans online, who had seemingly seen the pair bond over their three years driving together at Ferrari.
After all, they did seem like best friends just days before the incident at the Gladiator II premier, and in the hundreds of game and challenge videos posted on Ferrari's social media accounts.
However, it represents a wider theme throughout the F1 world, in that drivers are not always going to get along, despite what their marketing campaigns depict. With all of the press conferences, social media videos, public appearances and forced interactions, fans are led to believe that every pair of drivers on the grid are best friends.
The marketing strategy is clear: if the drivers get along like best friends, it represents that the team they belong to values strong positive relationships and has a good working environment, which are also values of the average F1 fan. Fans are therefore more likely to watch the sport and align with the team if they see these values represented.
As brand marketing manager Nicholas Jayr explained in his interview with Sports Management Hub's Anastasiya Romanska, drivers have started to become the face of every F1 team’s brand.
“One of the main outcomes of the Netflix series is that it has shown to fans around the world another side of the characters that make up the sport, the drivers. It has revealed their personalities, their humanity, their doubts – traits which are normally removed from the day to day.”
“Winning is one thing, but the journey to get there, and what it takes to even be part of Formula 1, to be one of the 20 ‘heroes’ standing on the grid, provides us with incredibly rich storytelling opportunities, and a tapestry of unique associations that in that case has helped us further boost the profile of our drivers, and ultimately the sport.”
“The secret to a good brand identity is to ensure consistency, and authenticity in the way you communicate about your brand associations – in a way that ultimately enhances people’s own experiences of the brand and reinforce its positive associations.”
With the social media revolution, this strategy seems to have worked. Engagement with the drivers individually often overtakes that of the teams or the official F1 accounts across social media platforms, Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton being the most popular.
However, one place where the strategy fails is when the teammates just can’t keep it together, showing the true and unfiltered colours of each individual, as was the case in Las Vegas with the Ferrari duo.
Tensions would have obviously been bubbling when it was announced in February that Sainz would lose his seat to Hamilton for the 2025 season, while Leclerc was able to stay with the team. By the time they reached Vegas, both teammates still had something to prove.
The Drivers Championship battle between Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Mclaren’s Lando Norris was set to be concluded in Sin City, so long as Verstappen finished sufficiently ahead of Norris. However, the real battle would turn out to be between Norris and Leclerc for second place, as well as between Mclaren and Ferrari for the Constructors Championship, neither of which have been concluded with two races to go.
In the race, both Ferrari drivers found opportunities to progress up the standings, Leclerc almost making it past leader George Russell, but the team’s strategy ultimately failed them both, with poor planning and decision making throughout the race.
The most particular issue that set Leclerc off on his radio rant was Sainz overtaking him for third, despite team orders not to.
“Carlos has been told to not overtake, so just look after your tires. He has been told to not put you under pressure.” Leclerc’s race engineer Bryan Bozzi stated over the radio, to which Leclerc replied:
“Maybe try in Spanish!”
While the mishaps and the miscalculations didn’t halt the pursuit of the Constructors Championship (With Mclaren finishing sixth and seventh), it did cost Leclerc three points in the pursuit of Lando Norris, who is currently only 21 points ahead.
It was clear that both drivers wanted to conclude the season with a battle, which emphasises the competitiveness between teammates—a factor that makes it hard to put up a ‘best friend’ relationship for PR.
2016 World Champion Nico Rosberg knows this all too well. Over his years at Mercedes, he and teammate/ex-friend Hamilton were constantly battling, on and off the track. When asked about the friendship between Sainz and Norris at Mclaren in 2019, he wasn’t so convinced that it would last.
“They are racing for 10th place. If they were racing for a world championship, it would change rapidly, mark my words,” he said.
“You can't be friends. You can only be friends if there is a clear number one and two. If you have got two guys who are trying to beat each other, it is impossible to be friends,”
The myth of Leclerc and Sainz’s friendship has also been debunked by press conferences in Qatar this week. While both have apologized for their behaviour in Vegas, it’s clear that they won’t be inviting each other around for sleep-overs anytime soon, based on Leclerc’s comments about next season.
“I've said it many times. On one hand, it's not like I'm going to miss him like crazy because he will still be in the paddock, maybe 20 meters away. So as I've said it for Fréd, Carlos isn't my girlfriend either," he said, making headlines and causing an internet uproar.
“As I said, we have a really good relationship with Carlos. And sometimes I have overstepped the lines, and sometimes he did. And then it only requires a discussion between us two. And we look ourselves in the eye, and we know each other since a very long time now. We understand each other very, very quickly. So I have no doubts,”
Ferrari may have faltered in keeping their image of ‘Charlos’ or ‘C²’ together, but that doesn’t mean that the drivers don’t respect each other, or that no F1 friendships are real. It just means that at the pinnacle of motorsport, no driver will willingly sacrifice points for another wearing the same colours.
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