RED BULL VERSTAPPEN VERSUS LECLERC FERRARI BATTLE RENEWED!
PICTURES
“WE WERE YOUNG, CRAZY – AND, YEAH, WE HATED EACH OTHER AT THAT MOMENT…”
Charles Leclerc is reflecting on one of many historic karting battles with Max Verstappen – one which has surfaced again as their intertwined careers have brought them back to face each other at the pinnacle of motorsport.
Max’s fast-track trajectory to Formula 1 took him out of sync with Charles on the junior single-seater ladder, and Ferrari’s wayward form has restricted the opportunities for them to lay claim to the same stretch of track again since Leclerc joined the F1 grid. But historic rancour has a habit of bobbing back to the surface in an age when nothing can be forgotten, merely consigned to some distant cloud-based server waiting to be rediscovered.
When Verstappen ushered Leclerc off-track while fighting for the lead of the 2019 Austrian Grand Prix – robbing Charles of what would have been his maiden F1 win after an engine issue denied him victory in Bahrain – a rough-and-ready video from their karting days surfaced online and, as the saying goes, ‘went viral’. It began to do the rounds again after the opening rounds of the 2022 season when it became clear one of these two drivers would likely be the champion.
There is a pleasing symmetry to the proceedings, for the video hails from 2012, the last time Ferrari meaningfully faced off against Red Bull in a battle for world championship honours. The rivalry between Leclerc and Verstappen was nothing
