The plane journey that convinced Ferrari on Leclerc

Ferrari appeared to break with its tradition of being cautious over young drivers by promoting Charles Leclerc for 2019, but it's been sure of what he's made of for quite some time already.

Jonathan Noble Nov 8, 2018, 10:53 AM

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From the moment Ferrari was hit with the reality that Sebastian Vettel was not going to win the Formula 1 title this year, it was inevitable attention would soon shift to what it needs to do differently to avoid another defeat in 2019.

After a campaign where driver errors played a pretty big part in defining the momentum of the season - think about how that 32-point swing in Germany would have changed things - the arrival of Charles Leclerc has got tongues wagging about how he will shake things up in Maranello.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.