For Charles Leclerc, the summer break came at just the right time: For the rest of the season, he has taken his ex-teammate Sebastian Vettel as a role model
“I needed that,” says Charles Leclerc after the almost four-week Formula 1 time-out in August. The Ferrari driver has gone through many highs but also many lows in the first phase of the season and faces a difficult task in the autumn: he has to make up an 80-point deficit on Max Verstappen if he still wants to win the 2022 Formula 1 title
“It will be a difficult challenge, but I will believe in it until the end,” insists the Monegasque. “We will take it one race at a time and we have to take advantage of every opportunity.”
A role model for this could be his former team-mate. In 2013, Sebastian Vettel had managed the feat of winning every race after the summer break to claim his fourth World Championship title. That was nine races in a row at the time – that’s how many are still on the schedule in 2022.
“We just have to do exactly that,” says Leclerc. “But that might be easier said than done. But I will do my best.”
But even nine wins from the remaining nine races might not be enough for the Ferrari driver to win the title in the end. He needs shooting help, which he could get from teammate Carlos Sainz or, after the break, from Mercedes again.
In the end, though, it comes down to who has the perfect weekend between him and Verstappen in each race. “There is not much between us and Red Bull. Sometimes we might be a bit faster and sometimes they might be a bit faster,” he says. “But in the end, whoever puts together a great weekend wins. And that will define the differences.”
It was the same in the first half of the season. But Leclerc’s problem was that Ferrari basically almost never had a perfect weekend. Sometimes there were technical problems, sometimes the strategy was bad, and sometimes Leclerc made mistakes himself. In the end, that accumulated into the current 80-point deficit.
“There were a lot of emotions, and that’s why I was a bit tired. That’s why I was glad that we had a holiday now,” Leclerc says that the break came at the right time. “I made the most of the three weeks with my family and friends. “