‘Max is going to be champion soon’: Charles Leclerc and Ferrari to focus on themselves in the Japanese GP
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Charles Leclerc (Images through IMAGO / HochZwei)
Charles Leclerc’s championship charge started with much promise, but through a combination of factors, that has all gone awry. Now, Max Verstappen has a chance to seal the title this weekend itself, with 4 races yet to go in the season. The Leclerc-Verstappen battle the F1 world had been waiting for has not transpired as (mostly Ferrari) fans as they would have hoped.
The Monegasque is aware that sooner or later Verstappen will seal the championship, and earlier said he wants the team to perfect their execution of the weekends. In a press conference on Thursday, he reiterated this: “Well, as I’ve said, before Singapore, I think we need to use these last races… as you said, I think realistically Max is going to be a champion, if it’s not this weekend it’s going to be very, very soon.”
Ferrari have often looked strong on weekends such as Monaco or even France, especially in qualifying, only to end up with no victory through a variety of circumstances. The car itself has not been at fault every time: “But we need to focus on ourselves, try to execute well the Sunday because the performance is not what we lacked this year.”
Charles Leclerc: ‘Focusing on tyre management and strategy’
As Charles Leclerc stated, it has really only been since the summer break that the Ferrari F1-75 has become squarely the second-best (if even that) car. But even then, it doesn’t count for all of their deficit in the championship: Which comes from errors or slip-ups, either from the driver or from the team itself.
It’s only been a few ‘one-offs’ that the Ferrari has not been competitive, like in Belgium: “If we look from the first race to now, we’ve always been strong and the performance was always good enough to actually fight for wins apart from some offs, but there aren’t many.”
Often, it’s been strategy and other factors that have been the main culprits, and Leclerc states that this is where their focus lies: “I think it’s mostly about trying to put everything together coming the Sunday: strategy, tyre management and yeah, that’s where we are focusing on at the moment. And this is the step that we’ll have to do next year in order to fight for the championship.”
The Monegasque also believes that Red Bull will be strong in Suzuka, and stated that the car is run in a similar setup to Spa: Where Red Bull were utterly dominant, and Ferrari rather dismal. That does not signal good things for the Italians, but Leclerc hopes that the team will be stronger than they were in Spa.
Also Read: “I’m disappointed,” Charles Leclerc downcasted after a P2 finish in ‘treacherous’ Singapore GP
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)