Three major operational errors made by the Maranello team in the last few months have affected Charles Leclerc’s prospects of challenging Max Verstappen for the 2022 Formula 1 world title. On the streets of Monte Carlo, in front of his home fans, Charles was leading the race until a poorly timed pit stop sent him outside the podium. A few races later, at the Silverstone circuit, Ferrari opted to leave the Monegasque on track with old hard tyres, while most of his opponents pitted under the safety car, which led to another fourth place finish after he was leading the race. At the Hungaroring circuit, in the last round until the summer break, an incorrect tyre strategy yet again converted a lead into a disappointing sixth place finish.
Max Verstappen would only have had a 37-point advantage in the Drivers standings without such errors, instead of the 80 points he currently has ahead of the Ferrari driver. In an interview for BBC, Charles Leclerc reveals how he feel about this?
“Let’s say that we know we need to work on that. We want to do absolutely everything to get better in every single thing we do, and obviously looking at the first part of this season, there have been some strategy problems, there have been some reliability problems and there have been driving mistakes. On reliability and strategy, we are working extremely hard to get better. And after a mistake, we always go through exactly the same process, which is to try and analyse from where the mistakes come, why did we take the wrong decision at a certain point of the race, in order to go forwards. As soon as we understand a mistake, then we can move on.” – the Monegasque driver added.
Charles Leclerc confirmed that he and his Maranello team-mate Carlos Sainz are “very involved” in these discussions, and that he has “the confidence that we will get better”.
But what gives him that confidence?
“The way that we work, because I know how tough it’s been the last few years to get back to where we are. And I know that we arrived to that level because for two years we have been working on those weaknesses of the car. So, we still have weaknesses and we need to work on them. But if we work as well as we did in the last two years on other weaknesses, I am confident we will overcome them.” – the Ferrari driver continued.
The F1-75 proved to be a fast car and first the first time in his Formula 1 career, Charles Leclerc seemed to have the opportunity of fighting for the world title, after several difficult years for Ferrari. However, several issues keep delivering him blow after blow. How has he dealt with this?
“It depends which one. I’m extremely tough with myself. So it is much more difficult to deal with my own errors than whenever it is the team, even though we are obviously one team and we lose and we win together. I’m always harsher whenever it’s me who does the mistake, and obviously France was one of those which which hurt quite a bit. Imola also a little bit, even though there weren’t many points involved because I could go back on track. But whenever I go through this tough time, I go through the same process as I was saying before, trying to analyse what was wrong. And it’s mostly mentally. You know, what is the mindset that I had at that particular moment of the race that pushed me to go over the limit and do a mistake? To speak about it seems quite easy, but it is not always easy to pinpoint exactly what was going on in your head at that moment. But I think this is a strength of mine and helps me to improve as a driver every time I make a mistake.” – he said for BBC.
Despite the fact that he has already been performing at a very high level, Charles Leclerc has stepped up his game in 2022, even though the standings might not show this. His advantage over team-mate Sainz in qualifying, for example, has been huge as compared to the previous F1 campaign.
Last season, it was 11-7 to Charles in their head-to-head during the championship, at an average advantage of 0.122 seconds; this season, it’s 9-2 where a fair comparison is possible, at 0.187secs. Charles Leclerc explains that the mental training he uses for his development is part of the reason for this improvement: “To put me exactly in the zone, to be able to always be at your 110% whenever you get into the car whatever the other outside pressures or whatever is happening around you; this is where mental training is extremely helpful.”
At the same time, Charles pinpoints other factors that have led to his improved performances in 2022:
“I think there has been a linear progression since I arrived in Formula 1 just by learning year after year and trying to modify some details. This year, I have changed quite a few things, especially in the way I prepare myself for races. In the way I relax after the races. But this comes from experience. It’s not like last year I was not careful to all of these details. Whenever you get older – I’m still 24, so it’s fine – in a way you just feel different things. I could feel at the end of last year that I was very tired in the last part of the season and I don’t want to get to the last part of this year being tired because I know it’s a big opportunity and I just want to win races. So there’s a lot more off-time, and time where I’m not doing much at home and in between the races. Just training and staying at home is basically my new life. Diet, training and staying at home. So there’s a lot more boring moments, if I can call it like that, but that are very helpful and I know they are. And this makes a difference.” – the Ferrari driver continued.
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Does Charles Leclerc feel that being involved in the fight for the world title has also led to him taking it to the next level?
“I used to say no, but I think it is. I think part of it is because when you know you have the car to fight for a world title, then you try to cure all the details. But then I will keep this level of preparation for all the next years because I felt the benefits, when I didn’t know the benefit before. So whether I’m fighting for the championship or not next year, this will be the new standard for me.”
Has being in a duel for the Formula 1 world championship changed anything else?
“Not really. I’ve never felt too much the outside pressures,” he says. “For me this doesn’t change much. It’s just more happiness, I guess, because whenever you are doing a great job you’re rewarded with a victory, which is much more rewarding than a fifth place like last year, whenever we were doing the perfect job. And it’s also beautiful to see the smiles on the faces of all the people now back at the factory and at the track. After two very difficult years where whatever we were doing it was quite frustrating because you’ll never get the result that you wanted, now we have the possibility to get the result that we want. So it’s good.”
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