12 May 2023 , 12:21
1041
0
Charles Leclerc vowed not to change his Formula 1 driving style despite crashing twice over the Miami Grand Prix weekend.
The Monegasque fell victim to the green track during Friday practice as, despite slamming on the brakes, he could not prevent the nose of his Ferrari from embedding itself in a Tec-pro barrier. And he lost control again at the end of qualifying the following day to leave his mechanics with another repair job.
That second mistake in particular came as he was trying desperately to push to squeeze every drop of performance he could out of his car. It's something we've seen in the past from Leclerc too, notably at last year's French Grand Prix when a crash from the lead effectively ended any hope he still had of title glory.
But Leclerc insists he has no plans to make any major changes to his approach when he gets behind the wheel. When asked if he felt his driving style might need some tweaks, he simply replied: "No, I don't think so."
Clearly, Leclerc has not suffered a dent to his confidence through those collisions. The Ferrari racer did admit, though, that he might need to approach the final part of qualifying a little differently.
Sebastian Vettel warns of looming F1 ban and is "very worried about the future"
He added: "I obviously need to, in those weekends especially, just manage it differently in Q3. But, at the end, it's like this. I think I put myself also in a difficult situation because I wanted a very aggressive set-up for qualifying. Knowing that this was the set-up, I will need to extract the most out of the car. I probably did a step too far, and this is something I'll look at."
Charles Leclerc vowed not to change his driving style (AP)For all their pre-season promise, Ferrari have struggled in the early weeks of the campaign with a car which is far too aggressive on the tyres. Both Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have complained about it extensively, but Ralf Schumacher recently voiced his belief that they are as much to blame for their results.
"I see the biggest problem with the drivers. For me, they're just not consistent enough," said the Sky Germany pundit. "With his mistakes, Leclerc shows that he either doesn't have the maturity or maybe, at the end of the day, he's not consistently good enough to win a world championship for Ferrari.
"And Sainz was eight-tenths away from Leclerc in one weekend. To be honest, the Ferrari team is currently doing a better job than both drivers."