The light after the crisis
Between Monaco, Barcelona and Austria Charles Leclerc experienced, in terms of results, one of the worst periods of his F1 career. Two retirements and an eighth place, precisely at the time when his teammate Lewis Hamilton had finally achieved victory, put the Monegasque in an unusual position at Ferrari: that of a driver apparently in crisis, around whom doubts began to arise. Doubts that Leclerc swept away with the victory achieved at Silverstone, the result of an almost perfect weekend for #16.
Speaking at the press conference in Spa, Leclerc answered a question from our Carlo Platella, who asked him what were the reasons for these three disappointing races and whether they had more to do with the characteristics of his SF-26 or this type of car in general.
Too much aggressiveness no longer pays off
“I don’t think it depends on Ferrari itself – said Leclerc – I think it depends more on this generation of cars. I have a rather aggressive driving style, in general. I think this has been a strength during my career. But with these cars sometimes you have to be careful not to overdo it, because in that case the drop in performance is significant and you risk losing a lot in terms of power unit output. If you are not efficient, if you don’t accelerate cleanly, if you don’t do things consistently, always the same way, then the situation gets complicated because you encounter different problems. For example, a different speed in the corner, which changes the braking point and forces you to continuously readjust your reference points, making everything very difficult”.
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However, the turning point came at Silverstone: “There were some changes I made at Silverstone to try to feel better with this generation of cars and to adapt my driving style, achieving definitely better results. But as I said at Silverstone, this is something I want to prove on more circuits and not just with one victory. Obviously, I am very happy with the win, but it’s not just with one victory that I can say everything is fine now and I am relaxed. There is a lot of work to do to try to maintain this form and especially this feeling, because if the feeling is there, lap times and performance come accordingly. So I just try to work as hard as possible to try to maintain this feeling for the rest of the season and for the different circuit layouts”.
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