#i genuinely think it's going to be insanely hard to replace charles at ferrari before anyone says it

[maranello]

I hope I’m not speaking too soon but I can’t help but attribute Ferrari’s operational success to Charles. Good strategies, fast pit stops, DOUBLE STACKS - he has that team built around him and everyone who doesn’t think so is blind. Like even the jokes and the dares with singing that pigeon song or whatever… I would have never imagined ferrari being so gone after one individual after Michael Schumacher. I love this team, their love for Charles and how he made them progress. I hope we have good years ahead of us because they both deserve it!!!

no comments on the future I fear we must not speak of Ch-name and F-team and their prospects for w-word-ing c-words in the future

I think it's a beautiful thing for Ferrari to believe in someone in such a way. It's not to say they didn't believe in their drivers after Michael nor do everything they can to win and win again. Michael's just different. He will always be an irreplaceable person to Ferrari, to the tifosi.

Charles, I think, while beloved by Ferrari, is also quite different from Michael in the role they respectively play at Ferrari. Michael came to them as a 2x world champion and a grown/matured leader, while they literally picked up Charles when he was still a boy and saw him/facilitated his growth into the man he is today. I think their attachment to him also comes from having that history, from when they picked him up in the Ferrari Driver Academy, but perhaps even before that because of Jules. I think they have known for a while that he is their future. And that future is now.

And Charles is still growing, as a driver and as a leader. I remember Binotto said something in 2020 or 2021 that Charles has that leadership potential and that he shares the same kind of winning mentality with Michael, but that he is still getting there. To be honest, I think throughout the course of 2021, no matter how many people might discount him because of how good a job Carlos had done, Charles has been growing in all those aspects that his final results don't quite reflect. By 2022, he's definitely built that camaraderie and also leadership within the team, especially after two very difficult years for the team. He'd been their constant through that.

But I think it would be unfair to the dedicated engineers, mechanics, and all the team members at Ferrari to solely Charles alone tbh. With or without Charles, I fully believe they would still be trying their damned hardest to get back to winning, and so we give credit to where credit is due to them for improving on all fronts. Also the years following Michael's retirement had been pretty fraught with political turmoil at a higher level, and it's never good for the team precisely because Ferrari's board has always been a lot more involved in the Scuderia's operations. Now, Ferrari on a corporate level has been more calm and I think our new CEO is not here as a temporary fix, and Mattia has been afforded the years and stability to actually build a team and let it gel, so the Ferrari we see this year is also credit to that as well.

But still, Charles. It’s easy to see how he has really cemented his place in the team. He's so easy-going and so hard-working. He gives 200% all the time. He's someone Ferrari can count on, but more importantly believe in. And he has similarly never lost faith in them. It's not hard to see how Ferrari finds itself gravitating towards him, with him. Sometimes the force of his being just seems to move you, you know? (Like Silverstone 2021...he made me believe right up to the checkered flag that we could win this. That feeling. That feels so Michael, all the best of Ferrari drivers in our history had that kind of quality.) His constant drive for improvement and the way he goes about it also just does feeds into a great culture for the team to improve on all the parts that had been missing when he first joined.

And somehow, I don't hope, I know we will see it come to fruition in the future.