Charles Leclerc insists Ferrari’s ongoing wait to win the Formula 1 world championship is not putting more pressure on himself or the team after a run of difficult races.
Leclerc was tipped as a championship contender this year and his early season form backed this statement as he won two of the first three races, opening up a lead of over 40 points before Imola.
But Leclerc and Ferrari’s form has since fallen due to a series of factors, including poor reliability, strategy errors and on-track mistakes.
It has left Leclerc scoring only one victory in the last 10 races, slipping to an 80-point deficit in the drivers’ standings to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Ferrari hasn’t won a world title in 14 years when it last clinched the constructors’ championship, but Leclerc has stressed the recent struggles are not down to pressure to end the team’s title drought.
“No, [it’s] really not,” Leclerc said, as quoted by Motorsport Week. “I don’t think about this, I just think even though Ferrari remains Ferrari of the 2000s, the team is very different. We are in a different place.
“The last two years have been very difficult for us, we did an incredible step from last year to this year to be fighting for wins.
“Obviously the goal remains to be World Champion, it remains the same goal for me. Even though it’s now going to be more difficult, it doesn’t add pressure that it’s been so many years that we haven’t won the championship.”
While the bad run of results has left Ferrari’s hope of winning this year’s championship slim at best, Leclerc believes it has the potential to mount a fightback.
“For sure, I think the pace is there to win a championship, we just have to put everything together,” he said.
“Reliability has been a problem this year, we’ve lost loads of points. We’ll try to grow from that.
“Hopefully we don’t have these for the rest of the year, things are still possible. I remain positive for the rest of the year.”
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