Charles Leclerc: Max Verstappen will be the champion but Ferrari needs to focus on itself

Charles Leclerc admits that he's switched his focus away from the championship picture as Max Verstappen has that covered. He, however, wants Ferrari to focus more on itself.

When questioned if there was a sense of inevitability when it comes to the championship battle, the Ferrari driver stressed that the team needed to focus on itself more and try to execute the races better in the future. He said:

"I think we need to use these last races… As you said, I think realistically Max is going to be a champion, if it's not this weekend it’s going to be very, very soon. But we need to focus on ourselves, try to execute well the Sunday because the performance is not what we lacked this year. If we look from the first race to now, we've always been strong and the performance was always good enough to actually fight for wins apart from some offs, but there aren't many."

Charles Leclerc also highlighted the areas where he felt work needed to be done. He said:

"I think it's mostly about trying to put everything together coming the Sunday: strategy, tyre management, and yeah, that's where we are focusing on at the moment. And this is the step that we'll have to do next year in order to fight for the championship."

Speaking about his team's prospects, Leclerc pointed out how Ferrari had been good everywhere and hoped for a strong result at the 2022 F1 Japanese GP. He said:

"We've got a very different car this year, a car that is much more solid on every track. Red Bull will be very strong here. It's a track where you run the car in a similar position to Spa, and I expect them to be very, very strong. So hopefully we learned well in Spa and we will be stronger than we were there."

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Charles Leclerc's reaction to 2022 F1 Japanese GP qualifying

Charles Leclerc will be starting the 2022 F1 Japanese GP on the front row as he qualified P2 behind Max Verstappen. The driver was looking ahead to the unpredictable weather as he hoped his team would make the right calls in the race. He said:

"The car felt good and it's always great to drive on this track, especially in the first sector because it has so much grip. It's a very fast lap, but the more you push in the first sector, the slower you are in the last due to the tyres overheating. I think it will be an interesting race. It will be a challenge for everyone to make the right calls with unpredictable weather ahead."

Charles Leclerc will hope to challenge for the win at the 2022 F1 Japanese GP because if he does, Max Verstappen cannot seal the championship this weekend.