Charles Leclerc: “Yes, I still believe in the title”
The Monegasque and his team have had one difficult weekend after another. Relegated to fourth on the grid, the Italian team is losing ground on Red Bull. However, Leclerc remains optimistic about his chances of winning the title this year.
While the Italian media, always harsh when there is underperformance in the red team, talk about a crisis within the Maranello team, one of its drivers, the Monegasque Charles Leclerc, recently appeared very confident about the rest of the season, explaining that the team is going through a tough period but will bounce back very quickly.
During the last races, we were not exactly where we want to be in terms of performance and that is my main priority: getting back to performances that allow us to fight for pole positions and victories. I expect us to be in the fight with McLaren and Red Bull as soon as we have maximized the potential of our upgrades on the car, he notably revealed to the BBC. Unshakeable serenity and unwavering confidence in his team, however hindered by difficulties in developing the car, causing them to slip down the hierarchy.
Indeed, the Italian team had started the season in the best way, optimizing every result when the Red Bull machine was not there, like in the Australian Grand Prix, where Ferrari took advantage of Max Verstappen’s retirement to achieve a one-two with Carlos Sainz winning ahead of the Monegasque driver.
Unfortunately, the trend has recently reversed despite a much less clear domination of the Austrian team. Since the double podium in Monaco, Ferrari has only made it to the podium once, with the Spaniard’s third place in Austria, achieved thanks to the collision between Verstappen and Norris.
A lack of performance that can be explained by developments that have made the car much more unstable and have exacerbated the bouncing issues of this SF-24, especially for Charles Leclerc who struggled to extract the full potential of this car, as evidenced by his two eliminations in Q2 in Canada and Silverstone.
Now relegated to 105 points behind the Dutch leader and overtaken by Lando Norris, the Monaco GP winner remains optimistic about the rest of his season and has not given up on his dream this year: to become world champion.
» I still believe that the highest goals can be achieved – which means the championship. Yes, I believe in it. I think it is important for me to keep this optimism and maintain this motivation at a very high level. In the end, we are talking about 0.2 seconds. Which, when you add everything up, isn’t that crazy. We need to focus on every detail and the season is still long, so I still believe in it.
A dream that seems nevertheless difficult to achieve this year, with Ferrari taking a step back in qualifying but which he believes can come true thanks to one man: his boss Frédéric Vasseur, who has injected new energy into the team since his arrival.
« In F1, one must be as balanced as possible on an emotional level, and Fred truly is. When we go through very difficult times, he helps the team to get back to a reasonable level and not to be too disappointed. And it’s exactly the same when we win, he doesn’t show too much optimism and brings us back to reality by telling everyone that we need to work because it’s only one race. »
A special relationship between the two, who have already had the opportunity to work together in the junior categories, especially when Leclerc was racing for ART GP in Formula 3, and which offers Ferrari a new perspective, probably better than the one they had under Mattia Binotto, and the hope of giving Leclerc a championship title, as he has stated that he wants to be a champion with the Italian team. The upcoming Grand Prix races will reveal the chances of the Monegasque driver this season.
