Celebrating his first Formula One win since 2024 at Silverstone on Sunday, Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc said he had to shut out negative noise and change narratives.
The Monegasque has struggled to extract the most from his car this season, while teammate and seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton has hit a sweet spot.
Hamilton, now 41 years old, triumphed in Spain last month to end the Italian team’s win drought, also dating back to 2024, and answer the critics who last year, when he failed to get on the podium, had suggested the Briton might be over the hill.
This year Leclerc has come under fire, particularly after he crashed twice on home streets in Monaco. He also crashed in Spain and said he felt ashamed.
“It means a lot because when things get tough, and that’s literally the situation I’ve been in in the past few races, there’s a lot of negativity around me in general with narratives being created,” Leclerc said after the ninth win of his career and first since the October 2024 US Grand Prix in Austin.
“And it’s never a nice environment to work in.”
I know I didn’t become a bad driver from one day to the other. It was just a matter of finding that feeling with the car
— Charles Leclerc
Leclerc said he was “super-proud” of his team for helping him to regain the missing feeling with the car at a fast track where confidence is key. Sunday was Ferrari’s second win in three races.
He said he had tried to “cancel the noise” as much as possible and tried not to look at his mobile phone but to focus on what was important and relevant.
“Things are said and you go from hero to zero, from zero to hero, in like two days in this sport. So my job was really to just try to cancel that noise, to not look at anything, to not listen to anything. And I know I didn’t become a bad driver from one day to the other. It was just a matter of finding that feeling with the car.
“I was very strong for the first part of the season, then I lost a bit of feeling with the car. We changed quite a few things with the car, and it took a bit more time than what I had wished for to get back to the level I wanted.”
Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium is next, a similarly fast circuit to Silverstone, and Leclerc goes there fourth in the championship and 39 points adrift of third-placed Hamilton, who finished third on Sunday.
Reuters
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