“Whether it was in highs or lows, there was no race with no emotions,” Leclerc says. “It’s either win or leading and then some problems occur or whatever. So it’s been a first part of the season with quite a few things happening.”
After two years of struggling, Ferrari finally started the season with a bang. They have had two wins in the first three races. Two retirements from Max Verstappen gave Leclerc the lead.
“First of all,” he says, “it was amazing to see that we finally got back to fighting for wins.
“On the other hand, we haven’t managed to maximize all the potential we had. And this is not great. We still have the second part of the season to catch up, I hope, and I will push at the maximum. But the last few races have been a bit difficult.”
Verstappen and Leclerc are head to head this season and it looks like the rivalry between the two may be as close as the one between Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen last year.
Ferrari mistakes have led to Verstappen holding an 80-point lead over Leclerc, wide but imminently recoverable. Leclerc still has a chance.
“Let’s say that we know we need to work on that,” he says.
“We want to do absolutely everything to get better in every single thing we do, and obviously looking at the first part of this season, there have been some strategy problems, there have been some reliability problems and there have been driving mistakes.
“On reliability and strategy, we are working extremely hard to get better. And after a mistake, we always go through exactly the same process, which is to try and analyze from where the mistakes come, why did we take the wrong decision at a certain point of the race, in order to go forwards.
As soon as we understand a mistake, then we can move on.”
“So, we still have weaknesses and we need to work on them. But if we work as well as we did in the last two years on other weaknesses, I am confident we will overcome them.”
This is the first time that Leclerc has had a car fast enough to get him a good chance at winning.
“I’m extremely tough with myself. So it is much more difficult to deal with my own errors than whenever it is the team, even though we are obviously one team and we lose and we win together, said Leclerc.
“I’m always harsher whenever it’s me who does the mistake, and obviously France was one of those 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.
“But whenever I go through this tough time, I go through the same process as I was saying before, trying to analyze what was wrong. And it’s mostly mentally.
“You know, what is the mindset that I had at that particular moment of the race that pushed me to go over the limit and do a mistake?
“To speak about it seems quite easy, but it is not always easy to pinpoint exactly what was going on in your head at that moment. But I think this is a strength of mine and helps me to improve as a driver every time I make a mistake.”
He considers mental training as one of the reasons for his performance improvements.
“To put me exactly in the zone, to be able to always be at your 110% whenever you get into the car whatever the other outside pressures or whatever is happening around you; this is where mental training is extremely helpful,” Leclerc said.
“I think there has been a linear progression since I arrived in Formula 1 just by learning year after year and trying to modify some details,” he says.
“This year, I have changed quite a few things, especially in the way I prepare myself for races. In the way I relax after the races. But this comes from experience. It’s not like last year I was not careful to all of these details. Whenever you get older - I’m still 24, so it’s fine - in a way you just feel different things.
“I could feel at the end of last year that I was very tired in the last part of the season and I don’t want to get to the last part of this year being tired because I know it’s a big opportunity and I just want to win races.
“So there’s a lot more off-time and time where I’m not doing much at home and in between the races.
“Just training and staying at home is basically my new life. Diet, training, and staying at home. So there’s a lot more boring moments if I can call it like that, but that are very helpful and I know they are. And this makes a difference.”
Leclerc has discussed playing golf in his downtime from the track. He is not the first racer to do it, Nigel Mansell was a quality golfer. When asked why he plays, he had the following response:
“I don’t even know myself because it’s such a frustrating sport!” Leclerc says. “And I always get super-frustrated because whenever I play with them, I don’t play well.
“But there’s something about it that every single small detail makes a difference. In golf, if you don’t exactly have the right mindset to hit the ball, then you already know that the ball is going to go everywhere, but not where you want it to go.
“So I think, mentally, it’s a very good exercise and that’s why we love it so much as drivers.”