Leclerc highlights 'race management' as biggest improvement in 2021

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc has singled his race management skills as his biggest area of personal improvement in 2021.

After a banner year in 2019 during which he won his first two Grand Prix, at Spa and Monza, Leclerc suffered a dismal season in 2020, the Monegasque weighed down by the Scuderia's massive underperformance .

But the Italian outfit's upswing at the start of 2021 logically pushed Leclerc up the running order, the 24-year-old also putting two consecutive pole positions on the board in Monaco and in Baku.

In terms of his personal development as a driver, Leclerc pointed to one specific weakness that required work ahead of the season, and which he eventually transformed into one of his main strengths.

"Definitely the race management in general," Leclerc said.

"I think since early 2020 I’ve started to say it’s one of my weaknesses, especially after 2019 where I’ve had a lot of good qualifyings but then in the race I was struggling a bit more.

"We were struggling a bit more as a team, but also as a driver I was struggling more than others so I put a lot of work into it in 2020.

"I got much better and I think in 2021 it’s actually one of my strengths now."

• Read also: Leclerc tests positive for Covid-19 for the second time in 2021

But by his own admittance, Leclerc remains a work in progress as a driver. The Ferrari charger reckons that he still needs to find the right balance between his qualifying and race day performance.

"I feel good whenever we need to do some tyre management, I feel like I’m going a good job," he said.

"But there is still a lot more to work on, maybe a balance from my qualifying to the race that I probably didn’t find yet and sometimes I sacrificed a little bit more my qualifying to be better in the race as we’ve seen a few times this season.

"But it’s a balance that I’m working on to try and get the perfect balance in between quali and race."

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