Charles Leclerc’s former race engineer Xavier Marcos Padros believes Ferrari “will have to manage” Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton as they fight to become Ferrari’s first World Champion since 2007.

Leclerc said farewell to his team-mate of the past four years, Carlos Sainz, at the end of last season with the Monegasque winning their head-to-head battle for the third time.

Can Ferrari fight for the F1 2025 World title?

Leclerc faces, at least on paper, a more formidable foe in the sister Ferrari this season as Hamilton has joined the Maranello team after winning six of his joint-record seven World Championships with Mercedes.

The 40-year-old has been stuck on seven since 2020 when he matched Michael Schumacher’s all-time record before coming up a lap short the following season when he lost the title in controversial circumstances to Max Verstappen.

The Briton has arrived in Maranello with one goal in mind, that elusive eighth World title.

F1 2025: All the details you need

👉 The full F1 2025 schedule

👉 F1 2025 driver line-up: Who is confirmed for the 2025 grid?

With Leclerc regarded as Ferrari’s favoured son for many years, the team’s 2024 resurgence means the F1 2025 championship could be his, and Hamilton’s, best shot before Formula 1 introduces all-new cars in 2026.

Marcos Padros believes 2025 could be Ferrari’s season, but they’ll have to “manage” the drivers carefully.

“I think the base is very good, in 2024 the car was good,” he said in an interview with formula1.it. “There is the basis for success, and then the people who work in Maranello are really good.

“The drivers are also there, Charles we all know how he is, while Hamilton will have to adapt, it’s normal. The faster his adaptation, the better it will be for Ferrari and for him.

“But the team will have to manage all this in the best possible way.”

Marcos Padros knows one half of the Ferrari driver pairing very well having been the voice in Leclerc’s ear from 2019 until last season’s Miami Grand Prix when he handed the comms to Bryan Bozzi.

He was around when Leclerc was informed about Ferrari’s decision to sign Hamilton, which came just weeks after the Monegasque driver put pen to paper on a new multi-year deal of his own.

“Charles took it well. Obviously he was always aware of everything, of the negotiations, and it was not a surprise,” said the Italian. “The managers were very professional on this.

“He immediately thought about what he could learn from Lewis, how he could grow: the correct approach in motorsport.”

Only time will tell how the Leclerc versus Hamilton partnership plays out given it is a very different situation to his time with Vettel and later Sainz.

As Marcos Padros points out, during the Vettel years the emphasis was on Leclerc to learn from a four-time World Champion, while against Sainz there were a few tetchy moments, the last of which played out in Las Vegas with the airways alight with Leclerc’s expletive-laden rant.

“The first year, 2019, he lived without pressure. Vettel had it,” the former race engineer said of Leclerc’s previous team-mate relationships.

“He has always had a very respectful relationship with Sebastian and has learned a lot from him, especially from his being really focused on the details.

“We have learned a lot from this method. Sainz is a really consistent driver, he works a lot, we have always taken this aspect as a reference.

“Charles and Carlos have always had a formal, correct relationship.

“They are two different people, logically there can be points of disagreement, it happens. But they have always spoken constructively.”

Marcos Padros left Ferrari at the end of last year with Cadillac announcing in January that he has taken up the role of technical director in the LMDh sportscar project.

Read next: Your verdict: Lewis Hamilton’s title chances, Ferrari success and Charles Leclerc battle