Heidfeld: "Vettel was better than Leclerc on raceday in 2019"

It is an unpopular opinion, but former F1 driver Nick Heidfeld stands behind his statement. Sebastian Vettel did better than Charles Leclerc during the races in 2019. The German was beaten in the championship by his young teammate with 24 points. Heidfeld, however, explains himself.

Sebastian Vettel won a race only once in 2019. His brand-new young teammate managed to win twice. Leclerc also managed to grab four consecutive pole positions. The statistics seem to speak in favour of the Monegask, but Nick Heidfeld sees it differently.

In the podcast Beyond the Grid the German starts off: "The most important thing for him [Vettel, ed.] is to make less mistakes during races. Those mistakes are, his biggest drawback in recent years. He hardly showed that in his championship years."

Despite the mistakes, Seb is the better of the two within Ferrari. "In the races, in my view, Vettel has the upper hand. If you look at their qualifying pace, Seb had some problems at the beginning of the year but he coped well. They were pretty daring then. Leclerc didn't beat him every time."

Heidfeld emphasizes that Vettel cannot possibly be seen as a bad driver. It has to be taken into account that Leclerc himself is simply very strong and has it in him to later elevate such a status as his current teammate.