Charles Leclerc has candidly reflected on the difficult run of results that preceded his brilliant victory at Silverstone, revealing how adapting his driving style has helped him unlock the potential of Ferrari’s SF-26.
Light after the storm
Between Monaco, Barcelona and Austria, Charles Leclerc endured one of the toughest stretches of his Formula 1 career in terms of results. Two retirements and an eighth-place finish came at the very moment when his Ferrari teammate, Lewis Hamilton, had finally returned to winning ways, leaving the Monegasque in an unfamiliar position within the Scuderia.
For the first time in a long while, questions began to emerge about whether Charles Leclerc was struggling. Those doubts, however, were emphatically answered with his outstanding victory at Silverstone, the result of an almost flawless weekend from the Ferrari driver.
Speaking during the FIA press conference at Spa-Francorchamps, Charles Leclerc answered a question from our Italian journalist Carlo Platella, who asked him to explain the reasons behind those three difficult races and whether the issues were more closely linked to the characteristics of the SF-26 or to this new generation of Formula 1 cars as a whole.
Too much aggression no longer pays off
“I don’t think it’s something specific to Ferrari,” Charles Leclerc explained. “I think it’s more related to this generation of cars. I generally have quite an aggressive driving style. I believe that has been one of my strengths throughout my career. But with these cars, sometimes you have to be careful not to overdo it, because when you do, the performance drop is significant and you can end up losing quite a lot in terms of power unit performance.
“If you’re not efficient, if you don’t accelerate cleanly, if you don’t do things consistently in exactly the same way every lap, then the situation becomes much more complicated because you run into different kinds of problems. For example, carrying a different speed through a corner changes your braking point and forces you to constantly readjust your reference points, making everything very difficult.”
Silverstone, however, marked a turning point. “I made some changes at Silverstone to try to feel more comfortable with this generation of cars and to adapt my driving style, and the results were definitely much better. But, as I said at Silverstone, this is something I want to prove across more circuits and not just with one victory.” – the Monegasque driver pointed out.
“Obviously, I’m very happy with the win, but one victory alone isn’t enough for me to say that everything is fine now and that I can relax. There is still a lot of work to do to maintain this level of performance, and above all this feeling with the car, because when the feeling is there, the lap times and the performance naturally follow. So I’m simply trying to work as hard as possible to keep this feeling for the rest of the season and across the different circuit layouts.”
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