With this third chapter, we conclude our interesting exclusive interview with Davide Valsecchi.
Speaking precisely about the Maranello Scuderia, we asked the driver from Erba what, in his external opinion, the Rossa is missing in order to return to winning ways. After a few moments of reflection, Valsecchi replied: “It is always extremely difficult to judge Ferrari because, basically, I care about them, and therefore I tend to be incredibly optimistic. But it is always difficult to judge because the trajectory of recent years tells me that they never improve that much. So, if you ask me whether they will win the World Championship, I would bet no, because in recent years it has always been the rivals who improved instead of Ferrari. So I say, we have statistics against us.”
“Honestly, I cannot tell you. I have the feeling that they will win some races because, with that thing that they are rockets at the start, and in qualifying they are not bad because Leclerc is often on the second row, if they get ahead in Monte Carlo or Singapore, in my opinion they win.”
“So I say, if they will win races, I feel like saying yes. Will they fight for something more important? Looking at the statistics, we have never had a second half of the season like McLaren. It has really been many, many years since we saw such big performance improvements. I remember that even with Vettel they were already declining, and we are talking about eight or nine years ago. Statistically, I feel like saying: will they win the World Championship? No.”
Continuing his analysis, he then added: “Obviously I hope Leclerc will be in the fight because he had Vettel as a team-mate and beat him, he had Sainz and almost fought on equal terms with him, even though over several seasons the Monegasque still finished ahead of him. He has had Hamilton who, okay, maybe has arrived a little towards the end of his career, but he is still beating him, despite the fact that when Lewis arrived it looked like the messiah was coming. I say that Leclerc, in my opinion, would deserve more than many others to win the World Championship. It is a shame he has not yet had a real opportunity.”
The first rounds of the 2026 Formula 1 World Championship gave Ferrari fans a few illusions thanks to finally incisive starts, with Leclerc and Hamilton often playing starring roles when the lights went out, only then to show a Rossa forced to suffer after just a few laps and to endure the comeback of Mercedes and, more recently, McLaren too. In particular, Antonelli’s Mercedes showed an unreachable race pace, enough to recover ground even after imperfect starts and progressively build a gap. For Ferrari fans, what remained were above all the emotions of the internal duels between Charles and Lewis, with overtakes and counter-overtakes capable of making hearts leap.
On this subject, however, Davide said he was very sure of one thing: “I am convinced that there will no longer be this duel between the two. It seemed to me that the atmosphere of Hamilton being combative and liking the regulations is already over.”
“When he arrived at Ferrari, I immediately thought they had taken him a bit old, always of course with the utmost respect for a guy who made history. In the period when we were embracing Vettel, he was winning four World Championships, and every time there was a head-to-head between him and the German you realised that, despite Seb having incredible talent, against Hamilton’s natural talent there was no contest. He always lost all the direct battles and thanks to this he won the World Championships in our face, so, absolutely, maximum respect for Hamilton. But when they took him, I thought: ‘Ouch, in the last two or three seasons he struggled with Russell.’”
“The last World Champion then has always won at 35, while he arrived at Ferrari at 40. I thought: in my opinion they have taken him old. Last year he was destroyed by Leclerc. Now that the regulations have changed, I thought the young drivers would be advantaged, given that they were used to always changing cars from one category to another, not someone who has been in F1 for twenty years. And instead he surprised me because in winter testing and in the first two races he even seemed faster than Leclerc. Looking at the last two rounds, however, it seems to me that he has already fought less with Charles. My feeling is that there will not be much of a fight because Leclerc will always beat him, as he did last year. But this is my feeling and we will have to verify it on track.”
After this analysis, we then asked him a direct question: “So do you think Leclerc is the reference point at Ferrari?”. He answered without hesitation: “Yes, I have no doubts. In my opinion they will only fight together a few times. Maybe when it rains.”
To conclude our long conversation with Davide, we also wanted to address a topic that concerns him personally, namely the transition from driver to commentator, first for Sky Italia and now for F1TV. Speaking about this, and also asking him whether he will return to wearing a racing suit in the future, he replied: “Last year I did a few little rubbish races. How do I experience this transition? Well. I am a fan and I really like races. To be honest, I like all of them, even motocross.”
“It was a natural transition because, the way I see it, everyone in my position who comments on races is cut out, because if they had really been good and phenomenal, we would find them among the twenty best in the world racing in Formula 1. So, once you miss that step, you are cut out and it is perfectly fine to comment because I am passionate about racing and I really enjoy watching them, judging them, commentating on them and above all cheering them on, because in general I support all the drivers.”
We thank Davide Valsecchi for the courtesy and availability shown during the interview. Partial reproduction of this exclusive content is possible with prior citation of the author (Giuseppe Cianci) and of the source Formula1.it with a link to the original content.
Cover photo www.ferrari.com
