{"id":484058,"date":"2025-10-08T22:29:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T22:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/484058\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T22:29:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T22:29:12","slug":"leclerc-says-ferrari-drivers-passengers-as-tough-end-to-year-beckons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/484058\/","title":{"rendered":"Leclerc says Ferrari drivers \u2018passengers\u2019 as tough end to year beckons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-body1 mui-8yrj4i\">Charles Leclerc is preparing himself for a tough end to the Formula 1 season as he feels the Ferrari drivers are \u201cpassengers\u201d in the current car.&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-body1 mui-8yrj4i\">Ferrari narrowly missed out on winning last year\u2019s constructors\u2019 championship at the final round of the season, but has been unable to build on that form. Currently sitting third in the standings, Ferrari is the only team out of the top four that is yet to win a grand prix this year, and Leclerc says his sixth place in the Singapore Grand Prix is likely to be the type of result that endures across the final six rounds.&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-body1 mui-8yrj4i\">\u201cUnfortunately, we don&#8217;t have the race car to fight with the guys in front,\u201d Leclerc said. \u201cMcLaren always had the same gap on us compared to the beginning of the year. Red Bull did a step from Monza and the same level of McLaren. Mercedes now is at the same level of McLaren and Red Bull, and then there&#8217;s us.&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-body1 mui-8yrj4i\">\u201cIt\u2019s not easy, obviously, because you want to fight for better positions. But at the moment, it just feels like we are kind of passengers to the car and we cannot extract much more.&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-body1 mui-8yrj4i\">\u201cI don&#8217;t think there will be anything special. The picture we&#8217;ve seen is going to be what the rest of the season looks like for us.\u201d&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-body1 mui-8yrj4i\">With Ferrari only eight points clear of fourth-placed Red Bull in the standings, Leclerc admits the drop in competitiveness compared to last year has been tough to handle, but insists he uses that as a driving force to try and improve matters in future.&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-body1 mui-8yrj4i\">\u201cI wouldn&#8217;t describe it as the most difficult. I think every time you don&#8217;t fight for wins, it&#8217;s difficult. But obviously coming from a year like last year, where you are fighting for the world constructors\u2019 championship, and then&#8230; you have to lower your expectations from the beginning, and you don&#8217;t even see a progression throughout the year. It&#8217;s not easy.&#13;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-body1 mui-8yrj4i\">\u201cIt takes a lot of energy, but that doesn&#8217;t demotivate me. It motivates me, if anything, much more to try and turn the situation around. But it&#8217;s very tough, especially after a race like [Singapore], where you are not even fighting for a podium, you have to manage lots of issues. It&#8217;s just not a nice feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charles Leclerc is preparing himself for a tough end to the Formula 1 season as he feels the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-484058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115340913244827055","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}