Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, 2022

I still believe in my championship chances as much as I did five races ago – Leclerc

2022 British Grand Prix

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Charles Leclerc admits his championship chances have suffered a blow in recent races but is confident Ferrari can fix the reliability problems which have held him back.

The Ferrari driver retired from the lead in both the Spanish and Azerbaijan grands prix. His race in Canada was compromised as a result, as the new power unit parts fitted by the team took him past the maximum allocation permitted for the season.

“Obviously we are not in the best situation with what happened in the last two races,” Leclerc admitted. “We are always pushing to the limit at the end, that’s what we need to do if we want to win this championship.

“So on that I’m pretty sure that the team will push 100%, I will push 100% and everybody is extremely motivated to basically have a bit of cleaner races to then get the rhythm and to get back the points that we’ve lost in the last few races.”

Leclerc held a 34-point lead at the top of the drivers’ championship standings after the Australian Grand Prix, with Max Verstappen 46 points adrift. But the Red Bull driver has overturned his lead in the six races since and is now 49 points ahead of his Ferrari rival.

Despite the setbacks they have suffered, Leclerc remains confident they can bounce back from their recent poor run.

“It’s been a tough time for the team but I think the way we have worked since the beginning of the season has been extremely good. So this we don’t have to change.

“Of course, there has been some reliability problems that we need to fix as quickly as possible and on that, again, I trust fully the team to get on top of these things as quickly as it can be done. It will take time but in the meantime, we just need to focus on the job we have to do on the track.

“I’m very confident that if we do everything perfect on track, we have the car and we have the people inside the team for us to win races and to win the championship because ultimately that’s the goal.

“In the last four or five races, it became much more difficult, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And I still believe in it as much as I did five races ago. It’s going to be more difficult, but anything is possible.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...
Claire Cottingham
Claire has worked in motorsport for much of her career, covering a broad mix of championships including Formula One, Formula E, the BTCC, British...

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One comment on “I still believe in my championship chances as much as I did five races ago – Leclerc”

  1. I believe he should look at that race by race, before starting thinking about a title, which is unrealistic due to reliability\ferrari’s bad strategy management etc., the goal should be getting more wins than he ever got before in a season, since unfortunately he missed 2018 and joined ferrari with a much less competitive car than the year before, 6-7 wins would be a good thing, but the trend hasn’t been positive lately, again not because of the driver.

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