Charles Leclerc remains sure he can challenge for this year’s Formula 1 title despite recent setbacks.
A tricky run of results in the past four races, including two retirements, has seen the Monegasque, who once led the championship by 34 points, slip 49 points behind current leader Max Verstappen.
In Canada, Leclerc paid the price for Ferrari’s reliability woes as he started from the back of the grid with engine penalties before recovering to fifth in the race.
And he admits the slump has been difficult to overcome.
“It’s not easy,” Leclerc said. “But yeah, overall, I’m confident that mentally I will be as strong as I was when I was leading the championship and the motivation is still there.
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“But we need to get on top of those things. Obviously, reliability is something that we need to look into after the recent problems. As a team, we need to maybe do a step on that.”
Last year, Leclerc almost won the British Grand Prix until a charging Lewis Hamilton came through for victory
And the Ferrari driver is remaining optimistic about a turnaround in form.
“We start again at Silverstone, where we will return to aim for victory,” he declared.
“The championship is still long, the gap is 49 points: two wins and it’s done. Seriously, we have to concentrate on ourselves.
“If we push to the maximum we have the potential to return to the front,” Leclerc added.
“I can’t judge what happens at Red Bull, but everyone has reliability problems. Mercedes is coming back too.”
That sentiment was shared by Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto, who sees July as a crucial month for Leclerc.
“Now we’ve got a fresh power unit for the next races,” he noted. “We’ve got four races to the summer break that will be important for him, where he can attack and try to recover some points if he can.
“Now we head to Silverstone, where we expect our rivals to introduce some updates, but we certainly intend to be competitive there.”
