Is Verstappen really racing Leclerc differently to Hamilton?

"It's hard racing, but fair. And every race should be like this."

Charles Leclerc handled defeat in last weekend’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix well. Hardly unexpected. Coming within five laps of a second successive victory for the first time since his back-to-back wins in Belgium and Italy in 2019, having gone through all Ferrari’s engine-power pain of the last two seasons, will instil sporting perspective.

But what also shone through the Monegasque driver’s words was his enjoyment of the fight against race winner Max Verstappen, who has forged the reputation of an unyielding, overwhelming force of F1 nature on his way to becoming the 2021 world champion.

PLUS: How Verstappen learned to combat Leclerc’s detection zone tactics in Saudi thriller

The searing speed, the fierceness towards rivals and paddock personnel off-track, the series of bold, on- and over-the-limit overtakes. That is Max Verstappen. That is the champion of last season, who took on incumbent great Lewis Hamilton with such aggression and intensity that even one of F1’s cleanest racers had to rise to meet ‘do or die’ tactics to avoid falling out of the championship hunt.

So far in 2022, the opening two races of the campaign have featured wheel-to-wheel scraps between leading drivers from two different teams. Only this time, there has been no contact between them.

The front wing damage Hamilton sustained in the nudge Verstappen gave him to send the Mercedes driver clattering over the kerbs at Imola last year might’ve been minor compared to what was to come between the pair at Silverstone and Monza, but so far in 2022 Verstappen vs Leclerc hasn’t had a carbonfibre cost.

The protagonists are different this time around, but a question arose after last weekend’s surprisingly smooth Sunday in Jeddah – is Verstappen racing Leclerc differently to how he did against Hamilton last year? The extension of such a query is that the Dutchman isn’t acting quite so fiercely this time around.

Verstappen eventually passed Leclerc to win in Jeddah

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The central thrust of this argument is the absence of contact between the Red Bull and Ferrari drivers so far this season. Whereas at this stage last year, Verstappen and Hamilton had had their Imola clash, which followed considerable Red Bull and Mercedes arguments, via the FIA, over their respective track limits usage in the 2021 Bahrain season opener.

Verstappen also hasn’t so far delivered any of the first corner bolshiness he was regularly sending Hamilton’s way in 2021. He also has refrained from sending uber-aggressive defensive moves to a rival’s inside when being attacked – as infamously happened in Brazil last year and then again in Jeddah as a result of the Interlagos move going unpunished.

And Verstappen has had the chance to take this course of action – with Leclerc going around his outside thrillingly in Bahrain and with one cautious wiggle back to the inside heading down the pit straight early in their engagement last weekend.

Verstappen can reflect on his car’s current advantage and combine that with Red Bull’s recent development pedigree. This breeds confidence that he just doesn’t need to beat Leclerc to every corner as he seemingly felt he had to with Hamilton in 2021

It’s just possible that Verstappen is thinking very differently this time around. Change does happen when a driver becomes a champion – however vociferously Verstappen argues he has not and will not happen in his case – but the circumstances of 2022 versus 2021 are dissimilar.

PLUS: What kind of champion will Verstappen be for F1?

Mainly, Red Bull, having taken on the mighty Mercedes squad, is battling Ferrari this time around. The RB18 appears to have the edge on pure speed and race pace when Red Bull gets everything right and the team has an excellent track record of developing packages to be even faster.

In recent years, Ferrari can point to the gains it has made since its previous engine potency was removed, but evidence is still lacking on how well it can fettle an aerodynamic concept to prevail in a title fight. But the Scuderia is a much slicker racing operation in 2022 thanks to its work in the last two fallow years, so it gets a certain amount of credit to spend – it just needs to show what it can do in aero development this time around.

Until that happens however, Verstappen can reflect on his car’s current advantage and combine that with Red Bull’s recent development pedigree. This breeds confidence that he just doesn’t need to beat Leclerc to every corner as he seemingly felt he had to with Hamilton in 2021, he simply needs to outlast his new rival.

Both drivers enjoyed their scrap in Jeddah, which featured more of the thrilling pass and re-pass moves seen in Bahrain

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Now, this suggestion can be countered by the knowledge that drivers on the path to becoming multiple world champions don’t tend to risk complacency. But Verstappen is supremely confident in his abilities and that of Red Bull, even with the Bahrain DNFs in mind – after all, he’s committed his future there until 2029.

And he hasn’t experienced bitter close defeat in an F1 title battle, such as Hamilton’s against Nico Rosberg in 2016. That seemingly sent the Briton on a quest to match Ayrton Senna’s overall overwhelming approach with Alain Prost’s consistency calculations to avoid leaving any possible points with which a rival could benefit should misfortune strike again as in Malaysia six years ago.

The counterargument to suggestions Leclerc is getting an easier time from Verstappen is that the world champion’s attacking moves in Bahrain were of the same super uncompromising variety he has deployed before. Three times he lunged at Turn 1 there, each one from slightly further back. Brilliant, but bold, and relying on his rival not chopping across.

Plus, last weekend’s race for the win boiled down to DRS tactics – with the leaders having enough time over Carlos Sainz Jr in third that at one fascinating stage they could afford to throw out the anchors for so long they locked up and went deep into the final corner in a respective bids to get the activation for the main straight.

Verstappen was also aware his car was quicker at the end of the Jeddah straights, as it was in Bahrain, thanks to its low-drag arrangement. Leclerc’s Ferrari continues to have better acceleration but with a lower top speed, and in Jeddah Verstappen didn’t need to attack from so far back. The track, with its three DRS zones and the Ferrari therefore only having the edge in the slightly more twisty first sector, came to his key advantage each time.

PLUS: Why Verstappen and Leclerc's Jeddah duel showed DRS still has a place in F1

When assessing the fights so far between Verstappen and Leclerc and comparing them to those of 2021 with Hamilton, the reality right now must surely be that Verstappen is racing just as hard as ever, but more than likely has taken onboard the key lessons of last year. A key one of those being that Interlagos-like defence isn’t on…

The evidence is also building that F1 wheel-to-wheel racing in 2022 is being conducted in a different way with the new car formula. The drivers can follow closer as the cars don’t lose critical downforce when running around 2-1-seconds behind another.

DRS tactics proved crucial in Jeddah, as Verstappen and Leclerc could both afford to over-slow in a bid to claim the DRS activation

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

But the slipstream effect is reduced and they are heavier on different tyres, the softer variety of which really don’t take kindly to be stressed. The balance of pulling off an overtake is therefore different and the drivers still are finding the best way to meet the challenge.

Plus, Leclerc is also driving at a champion’s level so far in 2022. His defeat to Verstappen in Austria three years ago means he knows he must match his rival’s aggression levels in battle, but at the same time he is taking a Hamilton-like approach to avoiding clashes and deploying smart racing tactics. It won him Bahrain and nearly worked again when Verstappen stepped up the pressure late-on in Jeddah.

When assessing the fights so far between Verstappen and Leclerc and comparing them to his Hamilton battles, the reality right now must surely be that Verstappen is racing just as hard as ever, but more than likely has taken onboard the key lessons of last year

And a final suggestion for why the leading scrap so far in 2022 feels different to that of last year is that in terms of the sporting spectacle at least, other than more awful crashes in multiple categories at a needlessly fast street circuit venue, the action in Jeddah got nowhere near the disgraceful scenes of 2021.

In any case, Verstappen won’t admit to changing his approach even if that has indeed happened. It’s just not his or all that many sportspeople’s way – they don’t want to give out motivation to rivals while always looking for their own impetus edge. But whatever Verstappen’s current stance, that plus Leclerc's equal brilliance has lit up the start of F1's new era.

Verstappen's win has got his title push back on track after the DNF in Bahrain

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool