Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Fiorano, 2025

RaceFans Round-up: 2nd February 2025

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Welcome to Sunday’s edition of the RaceFans round-up.

Comment of the day

Charles Leclerc made a positive impression on @Roadrunner last year:

Leclerc deserves to be ahead of Norris, although he was beaten a little bit too often by Sainz (who on the other hand is probably one of the most underrated drivers on the grid).

So far in his career far Leclerc was more known for speed rather than consistency, but this year it appeared to have turned around quite significantly. His only weaknesses this year were bad calls in bad weather (him and Ferrari didn’t get it right in any of the rain affected sessions) and a couple of Q3 laps he didn’t get in.

But over the whole 24 races he didn’t have any crashes, not even a single spin. Just one front wing had to be replaced when Piastri drove over it in Austria.

To put it in perspective: Apart from the four races from Canada onwards where Ferrari lost their way with their upgrades he finished outside the top four only twice (!). 18 finishes in fourth or better is even more than Verstappen had achieved who was praised (rightly so) for his matured driving.
@Roadrunner

Social media and links

Rwanda and South Africa race to bring F1 back to Africa (BBC)

'Rwanda's government has been accused of investing in sport to enhance its global image and mask what one organisation describes as 'an abysmal track record' on human rights - a strategy labelled by critics as 'sportswashing'. 'Rwanda has major flaws with due process which violate its own internal laws or international standards,' said Lewis Mudge, the Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch, a campaign group which investigates and reports on cases of abuse around the globe.'

How fast, sustainable and efficient is Formula E's new race car? (Formula E)

'The quickest accelerating FIA single-seater race car – capable of 0-60mph in 1.82 seconds (0-100kph in 1.86s), 30% faster than a current F1 car.'

Portimao race one (Winter Series via YouTube)

Portimao race two (Winter Series via YouTube)

Round four, race one (Toyota Gazoo Racing New Zealand)

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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8 comments on “RaceFans Round-up: 2nd February 2025”

  1. So formula E has impressive acceleration, this is easy with electric. But not so easy with ICE. Impress me.

    1. Yep – when Formula E compare themselves to Fi, the simple response should be OK – meet me at SPA and run a full race distance.

      Other full race distances are available.

    2. I mean, there’s a very distinct reason they only talk about 0 to 100 kph speeds and not anything higher, because their advantage is gone beyond any of that and F1 becomes much much quicker right soon. Let alone when there’s an actual corner involved.

      Once we look at actual real life data, which we can because they both race in Monaco on identical tracks at roughly the same period of time (sure there’s a few weeks in between, but nothing major in terms of seasonal differences or anything) and that’s when we get to a F1 pole time of 1:10.270 for F1 and 1:29:861 for FE. Which puts them almost 6 seconds below Formula 3(!), which had a 1:23.942 pole time last year. Just for fun, the Porsche Supercup pole lap was 1:32.846.

      So yes, perhaps they should worry less about F1 comparisons and more about not being barely above F4 over a lap. There’s a reason they’re still avoiding running actual tracks and even the few they do visit, they still shorten and put artificial chicanes into. It’s just making them look bad to keep pretending they’re competing with F1 when their YouTube race highlights can’t even get 10% of the views that F1’s Secret Santa video gets.

  2. Nothing new regarding Rwanda & South Africa anymore since they’ve been mentioned for a little while as viable longer-term options.

  3. If you’re mentioning F1 in your press release, then it’s game over already. I don’t know people make this mistake at that kind of level.

  4. Ah, that old comparison to F1 game, where the defence immediately jumps to “But F1 is better because…”

    F1 is better at being F1, and FE is better at being FE. Presumably, as it can’t be tested.
    They are not competitors in any way other than financial – and even that isn’t a direct competition.

    – If you’re mentioning F1 in your press release – it’s to attract attention. That’s what marketing is, and that’s what professional motorsport is entirely reliant on.
    – If that acceleration isn’t impressive, then you’ve never experienced it. It is objectively faster than an F1 car in the speed bracket shown, with the main limiting factor being traction (not power or torque delivery).
    – Oh, and FE can run a full race distance at Spa. It wouldn’t beat an F1 car over that distance, but then it’s not designed to.

    1. F1 is not ‘presumably’ better at being F1; it is. There are many reasons for this, but the most basic one is that not a single current FE car will ever reach the finish of an F1 race. FE races are about 100 kilometers and last about 50 minutes. That’s about 120km/h on average. Then they’re done. A ‘full race distance’ at Spa, assuming we’re still comparing to F1, is 305 kilometers with an average speed of over 230 km/h.

      It’s just a matter of calculating energy requirements. It’s very much true that a petrol engine has pretty woeful efficiency, and even with all of F1’s gizmos it’s barely above 50%. But the counterpoint to that is that petrol has an almost absurd energy/weight ratio. To get the same energy out of batteries, you’d have to lug around literal tonnes of batteries. Which in turn increases the energy requirement, etc. etc.

  5. F1 is not ‘presumably’ better at being F1; it is.

    Again, we’ll never know because nobody else is trying to be F1, or even compare directly to it on any significant scale.
    Standing acceleration to 100kph is something FE does ‘better’ and they want to use that angle to sell their product. No harm done – except to those who take offense to the idea that anyone can do anything better than F1.
    It must be a bitter pill to swallow to know that dragsters can accelerate to 160kph in just 0.8 seconds, and a recently closed rollercoaster in Japan did 0-180kph in 1.6 seconds. Both are (or were) far cheaper and more accessible than F1 too.
    But alas, neither could win a full F1 GP at Spa against F1 cars, so they are therefore inferior in every way.

    Where would we like to move the goalposts to next?

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