Charles Leclerc has given an early verdict on his F1 title hopes in 2023.
The Ferrari ace has had a difficult start to the new campaign with him retiring from third at the Bahrain Grand Prix before recovering from P12, thanks to a grid penalty from an Control Electronics change, to take P7 at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix last time out.
It leaves him 38 points off of championship leader Max Verstappen and though there are plenty of races left for him to reel in the Dutchman and make a go of the title fight, the Red Bull car that the Dutchman has is in a league of its own right now.
Leclerc knows that early big leads can be overturned, of course, after what happened to him in 2022 but it remains to be seen if Ferrari are going to be able to bring the upgrades they need to the car quick enough for it to start beating the Red Bulls.
Indeed, he’s not particularly confident about winning the Grand Prix in Australia this weekend or even having a challenge, but still remains hopeful that he will be able to stump up a title surge over the course of the season.
“Of course [the championship] is [possible], it’s still early in the season,” said Leclerc to the media in Melbourne.
“We cannot hide and say that everything is fine, and that from this weekend onwards we’ll be fighting for wins again.
“We need to be realistic. The way it is now, we’re far away from the performance we want.
“That doesn’t mean we need to demotivate ourselves. The season is long, we have upgrades coming in the next few races, hopefully this will help us to close the gap to Red Bull.
“We need to work, we know this but we don’t think the title is out of reach.”
Ferrari are working hard but they are not the only team to be doing so, and the hope for fans just has to be that they, and the likes of Aston Martin and Mercedes, do indeed close the gap up to Red Bull in the coming weeks to add some extra spice to the fight out in front.
Formula 1
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