AUSTIN — Charles Leclerc addressed the assembled F1 media community Thursday at Ferrari's hospitality space. SB Nation. The first question he faced was whether he would act as a kind of “referee” in the title race between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.
Leclerc, who sits third in the drivers' championship, has other things in mind.
“I mean, I don't think it's a referee, maybe the FIA are much more referees than I am. But the goal is obviously to take as many points from them as possible,” Leclerc said. I cut it. “But rather than focusing on the fight ahead, I feel like if I do everything perfectly, there’s a small chance I can still be in the fight.
“And that's the only thing I have more in mind than their fight.
“I see more than just our fight, so my focus is to focus on my own performance and try to win as many races as possible whenever I get the chance.”
However, in Leclerc's words, the American Grand Prix may not be his chance to take points away from Norris and Verstappen. Ferrari, and Leclerc in particular, have been in good form of late, with Leclerc winning at Monza and second in Azerbaijan, but the Ferrari driver admitted on Thursday that they are not “favorites” in Austin.
“I still expect McLaren to be at the front and Red Bull to be very similar to them. And then we and Mercedes, depending on how well we had the weekend. I will be there,” Leclerc said. “But heading into this weekend we are not favorites.
“So it's hard to predict how far we'll get. We've made some upgrades over the last few races, so I think this is definitely the track to test all those upgrades. Because until now, like Singapore, Baku, Monza, these are very special tracks that are focused on just one characteristic of the car.
“But this is more of an all-round course where every characteristic of the car is important,” continued Leclerc. “So I think we'll see where we've made the most progress and whether we've taken enough steps to combat them, but I don't think we have a complete answer yet.”
With Ferrari introducing some minor upgrades to the circuit, it's up to the team this week to find out whether their recent upgrade packages have simply added benefits specific to circuits such as Monza and Baku, or if they've given Ferrari everything they want. This will be an important week for determining whether positive development can continue. On the progress of the final stage of the season. However, Leclerc declined to say it was a “make-or-break” weekend for Ferrari in Austin.
“Certainly, this is a very important weekend,” the Ferrari driver began. “But I can't say it's much more significant than other weekends where we've made upgrades. Like I said, it's been difficult to judge the upgrades we've brought in the last two races. At this point. , we hope to get positive feedback from them as we believe these are the right direction.
“So I hope I don't learn anything new that I didn't understand before,” Leclerc continued. “But we are moving in the right direction and feel pretty confident that we should get the results we expect this weekend.”
Leclerc and Ferrari will begin answering those questions here in Austin on Friday.
