Rookie Leclerc flattered by Senna/Schumacher comparisons

Sauber rookie Charles Leclerc is flattered by comparisons being made between him and F1 legends, but ultimately the 20-year-old prefers to ignore the sweet talk.

The reigning F2 champion endured a rocky start to his F1 career, but two successive runs in the points, in Baku and in Barcelona, had pundits praising the young hopeful and comparing his talent to the likes of Ayrton Senna or Michael Schumacher.

While he appreciates the comments, Leclerc is keeping his feet on the ground however, aware of the vast amount of experience and knowledge he still needs to acquire.

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"Of course it's a great honour to be associated with those names already," he said ahead of his first home Grand Prix in the Principality of Monaco.

"But I try to ignore this sort of thing because I still have a lot to learn in Formula 1."

But even Alain Prost, a F1 legend and quadruple world champion, has praised Leclerc.

"That gives me a lot of confidence as well," Leclerc said in an interview with Blick newspaper.

"We've known each other for a long time because he has a house in the south of France."

Looking back at his first few challenging races this year, Leclerc believes he had a massive amount of things to learn, or adapt to, coming from Formula 2, which led to his early struggles.

"The more information you have about the car, the more confidence you get," he said.

"Maybe that was missing in the first two races. You make mistakes.

"In addition, the jump from Formula 2 to Formula 1 is much bigger than you can imagine. The tyre management is a science in its own right," Leclerc added.

With each passing race the Monegasque is getting up to speed however, and there's nothing like a good on-track battle with the likes of Fernando Alonso to help a young driver's progress.

"When you fight with such an aggressive driver and a two-time world champion, you will learn twice as much as you do with most other drivers," said Leclerc.

"And Fernando started at the back too, with Minardi," he smiled.

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