friedthoughts

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f1: Up close with our superstars on the grid carpet! 🍿

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Charles Leclerc wearing Yves Saint Laurent at the F1 The Movie New York Premiere.

Saint Laurent double-breasted wool tuxedo jacket

Saint Laurent wool pants

Saint Laurent stripped silk grosgrain tie

Saint Laurent Jean Derbies in leather

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New document: Doc 69 - Infringement - Car 16 - Safety Car Procedure

Published on 16.06.25 02:39 CET

Decision: Driver - Warning.

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getting mad over fred saying "they made too many mistakes" won't magically erase charles' saturday and friday??????

it's okay to admit your driver did a mistake you don't have to jump fred's throat if he comments on it he's not lying like maybe seek help and go outside

he literally said in the same breath that he thinks they were far too conservative with charles which he's right about because this race was a god damn missed opportunity and his brakes have been overheating from the reconnaissance lap he doesn't have to lick charles' ass day and night just to satisfy your worries

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espn: Charles Leclerc's reaction to qualifying P8 in Canada 😳

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Charles, you finished the race P5. We heard you say on the radio several times that you didn’t understand the strategy. What was your idea compared to what the team asked you to do ?

"My idea was that I had a difficult time with the hard tyres and with our car I think it was more difficult overall with the hards than with the mediums. I already had this feeling in the first stint with Lewis so my idea was- especially when I saw that the pace of the leaders with the new hards wasn’t that different from mine… two or three tenths, but nothing too big - I had a one pit stop strategy in mind. It was close during the race and in the end I don’t think it wouldn’t have been a bad strategy since there was no graining on my medium tyres. That’s what I had in mind but I don’t think it would have changed much."

Is it frustrating to have to drive at 300 km/h and to have to negotiate with the pitwall at the same time ?

"I think it’s part of the game. Today there were more negations than what we wished but it’s like this. Sometimes there are less, sometimes there are more. It was a frustrating race and frustrating week-end and honestly I’m the first to blame because I didn’t do the job: we lost FP1 and FP2 and in quali, even if we can see on the data the effect of being behind Isack, I’m in the car and I shouldn’t have made that mistake so yeah. Today I put everything together, but it wasn’t enough because we were starting from behind and that’s my mistake. Until now, races have gone well - in the sense that we maximized everything every time we were on track, but this weekend I didn’t." translation by the best ever @sedicii

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racing is for everyone ❤️ | bsky/twt

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MONTREAL, CANADA JUNE 14: Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Scuderia Ferrari Team seen after the Qualifying Round for the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on June 14, 2025. (📸 Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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Charles has like three genuine fans out there and a bunch of opps online with a picture of his face on their account and that's about it basically

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kitten

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i just woke up to a charles shenanigan. going back to sleep good bye

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MONTREAL, QUEBEC - JUNE 14: Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Scuderia Ferrari looks on in the garage during final practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Canada at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve on June 14, 2025 in Montreal, Quebec. (Left 📸: XPB Images Ltd / Right 📸: Mark Sutton)

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MONTREAL, CANADA JUNE 13: Charles Leclerc (right/center) of Monaco and Scuderia Ferrari HP seen after the second practice session for the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on June 13, 2025. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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MONTREAL, CANADA JUNE 13: Charles Leclerc of Monaco and Scuderia Ferrari HP seen after the second practice session for the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, on June 13, 2025. (📸 Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

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Leclerc thinks he's 'driving at a very high level' this season (Inteview video + Transcript)

Charles Leclerc joins TSN's Tim Hauraney to explain how good he feels about his performances so far this season, discuss if he feels he has the second-quickest car in Formula 1, if he thinks his car is more competitive when curb riding, and more.

TH: From the eye test, watching you drive this year, I've never seen you drive this good. Do you feel that these are some of your best performances? Like I know the car is not where you want it to be but from a driving perspective in a Grand Prix, aside from qualifying, do you feel like this is the best you have driven?

🆑: First of all, thank you. Yeah, I feel like I'm driving at a very high level. I'm with my performances this year. I think it's all about trying to improve years by years. So, do I feel stronger compared to last year? Yes, because with experience you get to know and understand different things then it can help you with the driving. So yeah, I do feel really good. Unfortunately for now, we don't quite have the car yet to win races but we are working towards that.

TH: As you get more experienced, what are those little things that one would have to chip away at or work on it as you go through a season?

🆑: I think the speed is not something that comes with experience. It's either you are fast or a bit less fast but it's not something that comes with experience. What definitely changed a lot for me was all that is around that. That's race craft, and the tyre management is something that is not something you have naturally. You've got to learn the hard way. You need to do mistakes, you need to destroy your tyres and have no tyres by lap 10 to try to understand what you have done wrong. And these are the kind of things that you learn little by little, years after years. And conditions are always changing so you know what's going to happen, when the rain is going to wet the track and then it's going to dry the track. That resets the grid for the track. But if you don't experience these kind of things, then you don't know so these come from experience. So on all of those different subjects, I've grown a lot. But I don't think the speed ever change.

TH: So we're done with the portion of the European leg, and the team has the second most points from that triple header. Do you feel that you have the second quickest car?

🆑: No, I don't. I think we are doing a really good job at putting everything and during this triple header especially, we did a good job at maximizing the car potential. I feel like all the teams maybe struggled a bit more to extract the maximum potential out of their car. I think Red Bull is in front, I think McLaren is definitely in front. And probably Red Bull then us with Mercedes. And Mercedes is a little bit more difficult to understand. I think they are a little bit up and down and they seem to have a bit opposite issue compared to us where they are very strong in qualifying and struggling in the race. We are struggling in qualifying and very fast in the race. I prefer it our way but we need to now understand what we are doing wrong in qualifying in order to have both sessions good.

TH: Watching you in Monaco this year was incredible but it did look that the car was good with kerb riding. Here in Montreal, at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, you will have to kerb ride, like I think you know… do you feel the car is more competitive when kerb striking or kerb riding compared to it not having that at other tracks?

🆑: I think Monaco is very, very extreme in that direction. I don't think here it's as extreme. So I think in Monaco we get a big benefit out of this, here the benefit might be smaller. But I hope it helps us to at least be closing the fight a little bit to the McLarens, but only time will tell. I think kerb riding is a big thing here, I think we've got a strong car on that. Whether it will make a difference in order to be fighting with the McLaren, I'm not sure it will be enough for here.

TH: Do you think the temperatures might help at all if it's a little cooler on the Saturday or the Sunday?

🆑: Yeah, this adds a little bit of yeah, like unexpected things because whenever the temperatures changes, then you need to re-adapt the car and then room for mistakes is bigger. I hope we'll get it right.

TH: About your dog. In Imola, I gotta try to remember this right. So in Imola, I believe there was a fan in the stands and she was holding a sign and there was like the pope's figure but it had your dog's head as its head. A lot of people spoil their dogs, that absolutely natural. Do you spoil Leo?

🆑: Yes, yes, very, very much. I think we kind of always say, that me and my girlfriend, we are very extreme. We love our dog, we love Leo and he is very spoiled. But I mean, he's amazing. He's amazing, we love him and he definitely changed our life for better. And we try and bring him whenever it's reasonable to bring him so whenever he can travel in the right condition, because obviously it puts quite a lot of stress on them whenever there's a lot of travels so we always try and do it in reasonable races. But we also try and bring him as often as possible because he's happy like that. He's great.

TH: Are you surprised how popular your dog is?

🆑: I am, I am. I'm mostly surprised like sometimes I walk with Leo and I can understand maybe people recognize me and then recognize Leo. They always mention Leo in the conversation. But now, like last time, my friend was walking Leo and he's not a celebrity or anything like that and he was getting stopped because they would recognize Leo. And this is at a level I never would have expected. So yeah, I never heard about a dog that would get recognized in the streets. But Leo does and he loves people in general, so yeah, he loves it.

TH: Charles Leclerc, thank you so much for taking your time to this. We appreciate it.

🆑: Thank you.

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there's another geolocked charles interview and will upload it in a bit. i still haven't uploaded the karun monaco one