Charles Leclerc asserts that Ferrari’s title drought in Formula 1 is not playing on his mind amid a difficult run in the 2022 season.
Leclerc and Ferrari started the current campaign strongly, with Leclerc holding a sizeable 34-point lead in the Drivers’ Championship after the opening three rounds.
But since then, reliability concerns, on-track mistakes and strategy errors have seen Ferrari slip away in the standings.
Leclerc now sits 80 points behind Max Verstappen in the fight for the Drivers’ title, while Red Bull has a 97-point advantage in the Constructors’ standings ahead of the second half of the campaign.
At the start of the year, Ferrari looked on course to be contending for its first title since the 2008 season.
Despite his recent run of mishaps, Leclerc asserts that the pressure of Ferrari’s title drought is getting to him.
“No, [it’s] really not,” Leclerc said. “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.”
Despite the gap that exists in the standings, Leclerc is still believing in his championship potential.
“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.”
