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Sometimes, Charles Leclerc hates Max Verstappen.
And it’s not like… well, it’s not like how Fernando hates Lewis or how Lewis hates Rosberg. One of those has long-since eroded under the sands of time to reveal something like respect, albiet weathered.
The other was thinly veiled, and hardly hate, but something else entirely.
But this… Charles hates Max the way fire eats at a house. All consuming, tearing at his flesh and bones till he’s nearly breathless with it. It’s no fault of the Dutchman, but when Max stands on that podium- glorious, victorious, the stands echoing with praise that would have carved him as a heretic in some long bygone era- Charles hates him.
The Ferrari is a shitbox.
Everyone knows it. The fans, the commentators, hell- even the team knows it. With each race weekend belching out another mistake, another mechanical failure, another mediocre result, Charles knows that the dream of a title drifts to ash, lost to the infinite universe of what could have been. If the car didn’t have to compromise ride height for speed. If the people on pit wall weren’t utter morons. If, if, if.
…His brain unhelpfully supplies the rest of the quote, that familiar, rasping voice a constant echo in his head.
But Charles sees what the fans say. The Tifosi, his familia- they flood social media after each race, every variation of ‘he dragged that tractor to places it should not have been’ echoing across the internet.
It brings him some comfort.
But not enough.
Because Max could drive a Ferrari and likely put it on the fucking moon.
Max could take a shitbox and make it a championship winning car.
Max could look at him with those pale, ice-chip blue eyes that crinkled at the corners, pouty lips splitting his face in a rare grin as he went off on another tangent about understeer and tire strategy, not knowing that Charles hates the way he can’t stop looking at the four time world champion.
Abu Dhabi, 2025.
He’s dragged that fucking Ferrari to places it should never have been.
P4, specifically. Just one place short of the win that would give Max his fifth.
Charles doesn’t realize he’s setting fastest lap after fastest lap until his mechanic mutters the stat in his ear, radio crackling.
Almost there. He’s almost there, he’s driving like a goddamn demon, so close he can taste Norris’s engines.
It’s not enough. That’s the thing with Ferrari, it’s never enough. The checkered flag falls, and Charles watches Max up on that podium, trophy in hand, and there’s something in the Dutchman’s eyes as the dream of title five dies under the floodlights of Abu Dhabi.
Grief.
Charles knows it’s not his damn job to help Max win a championship. He didn’t drive that day for Max. He drove for himself, for the Tifosi, for Ferrari. For the team that gave him everything, and not enough.
He didn’t push that car to the very brink just for the chance of seeing the satisfaction in Max’s eyes. For the chance of the Dutchman to wrap his arm around him and say ‘what a brilliant drive, mate. Fantastic, incredible-‘
Charles hates how easy it is to lie to himself.