Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc has pinpointed his race management skills as his biggest area of personal improvement in the 2021 Formula 1 season.
After a positive 2019 championship, in which he scored his first two race wins, in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa and, much to the delight of the Tifosi, in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza, Charles Leclerc suffered a dismal season in 2020, mainly due to the poor performance of the Italian side’s SF1000. The FIA tightened the fuel flow provisions for the 2020 season and introduced a second fuel flow sensor, as the SF1000 was slower, with GPS analysis suggesting that it had lost 65 bhp (48 kW) in comparison to the SF90.
But the Maranello team’s progress at the start of the 2021 campain logically pushed Charles Leclerc up the running order, with the Monegasque driver scoring two consecutive pole positions this year, on the streets of Monte Carlo and Baku.
In terms of his personal development as a driver, Charles Leclerc pointed to one specific weakness that he focused on in 2021 and which he eventually managed to transform into one of his main strengths.
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“Definitely the race management in general. I think since early 2020 I’ve started to say it’s one of my weaknesses, especially after 2019 where I’ve had a lot of good qualifyings but then in the race I was struggling a bit more. We were struggling a bit more as a team, but also as a driver I was struggling more than others so I put a lot of work into it in 2020. I got much better and I think in 2021 it’s actually one of my strengths now.” – he explained.
But by his own admittance, Charles Leclerc remains a work in progress as a driver and is still looking to improve in order to maximise his potential: the Ferrari drivers feels that he still needs to find the right balance between his qualifying pace and race day performance.
“I feel good whenever we need to do some tyre management, I feel like I’m going a good job. But there is still a lot more to work on, maybe a balance from my qualifying to the race that I probably didn’t find yet and sometimes I sacrificed a little bit more my qualifying to be better in the race as we’ve seen a few times this season. But it’s a balance that I’m working on to try and get the perfect balance in between quali and race.” – Charles Leclerc concluded.
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