Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc admitted that the Maranello team has had a difficult time in the last few races, but confirmed that he is not giving up yet on his and Ferrari title hopes for the 2022 Formula 1 season, while at the same time being aware that the task has now become much more difficult due to the recent results.
A very strong start of the season for Ferrari allowed Charles Leclerc to gain a solid gap in front of the championship after the first three rounds, but everything went downhill from there. A series of reliability problems and poor strategy calls by the Maranello team, coupled with some flawless performances by Red Bull and Max Verstappen gradually turned the tables and shifted the balance of power as we near the half stage of the season.
Due to these circumstances, Max Verstappen was able to take five wins from the last six races, a dominant run that has sent Charles Leclerc to third place in the Drivers’ standings ahead of the next round of the championship, the British Grand Prix, with 49 points that Charles must try to recover in the second half.
For Ferrari and the Monegasque driver, the task of winning the title fight is therefore a lot more difficult, but Charles Leclerc feels that all is not lost.
“Obviously we’re not in the best situation with the last few races,” he said yesterday at the Silverstone press conference – “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 have… cleaner races and get the rhythm and get back the points that we’ve lost in the last three races. Overall, 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. But then of course, there have been some reliability problems that we need to fix as quickly as possible, so 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 track and again, 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.” – he explained.
“In the last four, five races, it became much more difficult. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I still believe in it as much as I believed five races ago. It’s going to be more difficult, but anything is possible.” – Charles Leclerc added, ahead of the Silverstone weekend, which could be the first step to recovering part of the significant deficit.
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And July will now a key moment for the title duel, given the four races unfolding over the next five weeks: after Silverstone, the teams will travel to Austria, France and Hungary. This means that the next few weeks will weigh heavily on Scuderia Ferrari and Charles Leclerc’s hopes of continuing the battle against Red Bull and Max Verstappen:
“It’s obviously important. I think the next four races will be very important, just before the summer break; to go [into the] holidays with four good races would be great. Now we need to focus on ourselves. I think the performance is there, and if we’ve got clean weekends, I’m pretty sure the results will follow. But again, we just need to focus on ourselves and then the rest will come.” – Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc concluded.
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