How does Leclerc deal with setbacks at Ferrari? "It depends which one"

Charles Leclerc has suffered a number of setbacks in his first bid for the Formula One world title. The Ferrari driver explains how he has dealt with those setbacks and what he thinks his team should do to turn things around.

The 2022 F1 season will mark the first time Leclerc has had a car consistently fast enough to fight for the title, but after a strong start to the season the Monegasque suffered setback after setback. How has he dealt with them? "It depends which one," Leclerc begins in conversation with BBC.

Leclerc is strict with himself

The driver experiences his own mistake as more painful than when the fault lies with the team. "I'm always harsher whenever it's me who does the mistake, and obviously France was one of those which which hurt quite a bit. Imola also a little bit, even though there weren't many points involved because I could go back on track," he explains. Whenever he goes through such a difficult period, he goes through a process of trying to analyse what went wrong. "It's mostly mentally," he adds.

Some of the setbacks that Ferrari has faced in the current F1 season have been self-inflicted. For example, a number of questionable strategic decisions were made, causing Leclerc to miss out on quite a few points already. "Let's say that we know we need to work on that," says the Monegasque. He stresses that the team has struggled in the areas of strategy, reliability and driving skills and sees room for improvement in all of them.