Charles Leclerc insists he will not “wave goodbye” hopes of winning this year’s Formula 1 title just yet.
This weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix will see the 2019 season reach the one-third distance mark in what has been a year so far dominated by Mercedes.
After just six races, the gap between the Monegasque and championship leader Lewis Hamilton is already 80 points.
But while any thought of closing that may seem near-impossible at this point, Leclerc is not giving up.
“No, not yet. I never wave goodbye until it’s done,” he told Crash.net.
“Of course, it’s been a difficult start to the season and we definitely expected more but we don’t need to wave goodbye yet. We need to push until the end and that’s what we are doing.
“My target is always the same to try and maximise our potential with our car and this doesn’t change,” he added. “I will just give it everything every race and we’ll see how it ends.”
Leclerc sees races like Bahrain and Baku, where he was arguably the fastest driver, as proof that when he and Ferrari get it together, the potential is there to win.
And the 21-year-old would go on to reveal how he has learnt from key errors as he tries to achieve that level more regularly.
“I think one approach that I probably have changed after Baku was pushing too hard in Q2,” Leclerc said. “To crash at that time was probably a bit stupid as I mentioned it many times.
“Then in Barcelona, of course, we broke parts of the floor but that was not by pushing too hard, I just definitely did not expect it.
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“There’s definitely been a few mistakes,” he acknowledged. “There’s a change of approach when you arrive in Ferrari compared to a year like last year when you can give it all from Q1 to Q3.
“I’ve definitely learned from them. Now I’m looking forward, trying not to reproduce them and hopefully there are better times to come.”
