Leclerc on his F1 title chances: “I can only control my own destiny…”

Like a hole-in-one, Leclerc’s title chances are a “long shot…”

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc admits that the chance of him winning the 2024 Formula 1 drivers’ World Championship is “a long shot” – and that he can only control his own destiny and not rely on Max Verstappen having problems.

With four Grands Prix and two sprint events left Leclerc has 291 points to the 362 score of leader Verstappen and the 315 of Lando Norris.

Leclerc says that Ferrari can win the constructors’ championship – in which the gap to McLaren is now just 29 points – but he has accepted that the drivers’ version will have to wait for another season.

“The drivers’ championship, I think is a long shot,” he said. “I think the constructors’ championship only relies on us doing well. I think the drivers’ championship, doesn’t rely only on me doing well, but it also relies on Max doing badly.

“And what happens to Max, I cannot control. I can only control my own destiny. And so I’ll try and do the best possible job, and then we’ll see at the end of the year. But realistically speaking, it looks very unlikely that we will get the drivers’ championship this year.”

Leclerc said that a constructors’ title would be very significant for Ferrari, the team having last won it in 2008.

However he stressed that internally the focus is still on taking this season it a race a time.

“It will be very, very important, especially after so many years of Ferrari being out of chances of winning that world title,” he said.

“However, it’s not something we focus on. It’s not something that we speak of, to be honest, inside the team. We are just focusing step-by-step.

“We really believe that this is the way forward, and in order to give ourselves the best chance, in order to win the championship, we’ve got to not think about it too much.

“So we are just focusing on this weekend, starting with this weekend, hopefully maximising the result, just like we’ve done in the last two races.

“We have a good momentum, the motivation is super high in the team, and we need to use that in order to do a very good short-term, and then we’ll see at the end of the season how it goes.”

Carlos Sainz noted recently that he believes the Qatar GP is the only race in the last four where Ferrari might not be in a position to win, and Leclerc agrees.

“I think Qatar on the paper is probably the most difficult weekend for us in the remaining ones,” he said. “I think here [Brazil] maybe it’s the second one where we don’t expect to be particularly stellar. Las Vegas should be a really good one for us, and Abu Dhabi, neutral.

“So all-in-all, again, I come back to the point of before, that we really have to focus step-by-step. It’s very fine details, and sometimes this can make a big difference.

“And especially on sprint weekends like this, it’s not because on paper, you are not the favourite that it cannot be the case tomorrow.

“We only have one free practice session, if we manage to do a really good job during this free practice session, everything is possible, and the margins are not big enough for it to be a clear P3.

“So it’s all about the job we’ll do this weekend, and if we do a really good job, then we will have chances of winning this race, even though, on paper, I don’t think we are favourites, and probably McLaren will be the team to beat.”