Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc refuses to give up on F1 Driver’s Championship: I’m just extremely motivated

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc has said that he is extremely motivated and has refused to give up on the Formula One Driver’s Championship despite trailing Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 49 points.

Leclerc started the season in fine form with wins in Bahrain and Australia. However, reliability issues with the car has cost him dearly as the Ferrari driver was forced to retire from the Spanish GP and Azerbaijan GP while he was leading them. This allowed Verstappen and Sergio Perez to capitalize as the Red Bull drivers have overtaken him to take the top two spots in the driver standings.

Despite the recent setbacks, the Monegasque driver remains optimistic about his chances and feels that he can overhaul the 49-point deficit to Verstappen. He said that the championship is long and two wins could tilt things back in his favour.

“We start again at Silverstone, where we will return to aim for victory. The championship is still long, the gap is 49 points: two wins and it’s done. Seriously, we have to concentrate on ourselves. I’m not worried, I’m just extremely motivated to finally have a clean weekend and show that we are here and that we are strong,” said Leclerc.

The Ferrari driver further said that reliability issues would play a big factor in deciding the Championship race. Perez and Red Bull encountered problems during last weekend’s Canadian GP, which meant that the Mexican had to retire from the race.

“Obviously, Red Bull also had a few problems. So definitely, reliability is going to be a big thing.”

“But that’s what we need. Whenever we have more difficult weekends, like this weekend, just to go and take some good points. That’s what we did.

“If we push to the maximum we have the potential to return to the front,” said Leclerc.