Leclerc thinks he's 'driving at a very high level' this season (Inteview video + Transcript)
Charles Leclerc joins TSN's Tim Hauraney to explain how good he feels about his performances so far this season, discuss if he feels he has the second-quickest car in Formula 1, if he thinks his car is more competitive when curb riding, and more.
TH: From the eye test, watching you drive this year, I've never seen you drive this good. Do you feel that these are some of your best performances? Like I know the car is not where you want it to be but from a driving perspective in a Grand Prix, aside from qualifying, do you feel like this is the best you have driven?
🆑: First of all, thank you. Yeah, I feel like I'm driving at a very high level. I'm with my performances this year. I think it's all about trying to improve years by years. So, do I feel stronger compared to last year? Yes, because with experience you get to know and understand different things then it can help you with the driving. So yeah, I do feel really good. Unfortunately for now, we don't quite have the car yet to win races but we are working towards that.
TH: As you get more experienced, what are those little things that one would have to chip away at or work on it as you go through a season?
🆑: I think the speed is not something that comes with experience. It's either you are fast or a bit less fast but it's not something that comes with experience. What definitely changed a lot for me was all that is around that. That's race craft, and the tyre management is something that is not something you have naturally. You've got to learn the hard way. You need to do mistakes, you need to destroy your tyres and have no tyres by lap 10 to try to understand what you have done wrong. And these are the kind of things that you learn little by little, years after years. And conditions are always changing so you know what's going to happen, when the rain is going to wet the track and then it's going to dry the track. That resets the grid for the track. But if you don't experience these kind of things, then you don't know so these come from experience. So on all of those different subjects, I've grown a lot. But I don't think the speed ever change.
TH: So we're done with the portion of the European leg, and the team has the second most points from that triple header. Do you feel that you have the second quickest car?
🆑: No, I don't. I think we are doing a really good job at putting everything and during this triple header especially, we did a good job at maximizing the car potential. I feel like all the teams maybe struggled a bit more to extract the maximum potential out of their car. I think Red Bull is in front, I think McLaren is definitely in front. And probably Red Bull then us with Mercedes. And Mercedes is a little bit more difficult to understand. I think they are a little bit up and down and they seem to have a bit opposite issue compared to us where they are very strong in qualifying and struggling in the race. We are struggling in qualifying and very fast in the race. I prefer it our way but we need to now understand what we are doing wrong in qualifying in order to have both sessions good.
TH: Watching you in Monaco this year was incredible but it did look that the car was good with kerb riding. Here in Montreal, at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, you will have to kerb ride, like I think you know… do you feel the car is more competitive when kerb striking or kerb riding compared to it not having that at other tracks?
🆑: I think Monaco is very, very extreme in that direction. I don't think here it's as extreme. So I think in Monaco we get a big benefit out of this, here the benefit might be smaller. But I hope it helps us to at least be closing the fight a little bit to the McLarens, but only time will tell. I think kerb riding is a big thing here, I think we've got a strong car on that. Whether it will make a difference in order to be fighting with the McLaren, I'm not sure it will be enough for here.
TH: Do you think the temperatures might help at all if it's a little cooler on the Saturday or the Sunday?
🆑: Yeah, this adds a little bit of yeah, like unexpected things because whenever the temperatures changes, then you need to re-adapt the car and then room for mistakes is bigger. I hope we'll get it right.
TH: About your dog. In Imola, I gotta try to remember this right. So in Imola, I believe there was a fan in the stands and she was holding a sign and there was like the pope's figure but it had your dog's head as its head. A lot of people spoil their dogs, that absolutely natural. Do you spoil Leo?
🆑: Yes, yes, very, very much. I think we kind of always say, that me and my girlfriend, we are very extreme. We love our dog, we love Leo and he is very spoiled. But I mean, he's amazing. He's amazing, we love him and he definitely changed our life for better. And we try and bring him whenever it's reasonable to bring him so whenever he can travel in the right condition, because obviously it puts quite a lot of stress on them whenever there's a lot of travels so we always try and do it in reasonable races. But we also try and bring him as often as possible because he's happy like that. He's great.
TH: Are you surprised how popular your dog is?
🆑: I am, I am. I'm mostly surprised like sometimes I walk with Leo and I can understand maybe people recognize me and then recognize Leo. They always mention Leo in the conversation. But now, like last time, my friend was walking Leo and he's not a celebrity or anything like that and he was getting stopped because they would recognize Leo. And this is at a level I never would have expected. So yeah, I never heard about a dog that would get recognized in the streets. But Leo does and he loves people in general, so yeah, he loves it.
TH: Charles Leclerc, thank you so much for taking your time to this. We appreciate it.
