Charles Leclerc is not here to ‘referee’ a Max Verstappen, Lando Norris F1 title fight

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc is focused on his own fight, and not the one between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris

AUSTIN — Thursday in the Ferrari hospitality space, Charles Leclerc addressed the assembled Formula 1 media world, including SB Nation. The very first question he faced was whether he would be acting as something of a “referee” in the title race between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.

For Leclerc, who sits third in the Drivers’ Championship, he has something else in mind.

“I mean, I wouldn’t consider that a referee, probably the FIA is much more of a referee than I am. But I mean the goal is obviously to steal as many points as we can from them,” began Leclerc. “But more than focusing on the battle in front, I still feel that if we do everything perfect, there’s still a slight possibility of us joining the fight.

“And that’s the only thing I have in mind more than their fights.

“I see more than our fight, and just focusing on my own performance and trying to win as many races as possible whenever there’s the opportunity to do so, is my focus.”

However, in Leclerc’s words, the United States Grand Prix might not be an opportunity for him to steal points away from Norris and Verstappen. While Ferrari — and Leclerc in particular — have been strong as of late, with Leclerc winning in Monza and taking second in Azerbaijan, the Ferrari driver conceded Thursday that they are not the “favorite” in Austin.

“I still expect McLaren to be in front, Red Bull to be very similar to them. And then us and Mercedes, depending on how good of a weekend we have, will be will be there,” described Leclerc. “But we are not the favorite going into this weekend.

“So then to see how far we will be, it’s difficult to predict. We’ve had a few upgrades in the last few races, so I think this is definitely a track where we will put all of those upgrades to the test because until now, Singapore, Baku, Monza, those are very specific tracks which are focusing only on one characteristic of the car.

“However, here it’s a more all-rounded track where every characteristic of the car will count,” continued Leclerc. “And there I think we’ll see where we’ve done the biggest progress, and if we’ve done enough of a step to be fighting with them, but I don’t think we quite have the answer yet.”

With Ferrari bringing some minor upgrades to the track, this is an important week for the team to determine whether recent upgrade packages simply added track-specific benefits, such as in Monza and Baku, or they can continue the positive development, giving Ferrari all-around progress down the season’s final stretch. However, Leclerc would not state that it was a “make or break” weekend for Ferrari in Austin.

“For sure, it’s a very important weekend,” began the Ferrari driver. “However, I wouldn’t say that it’s a lot more important than any other weekends where we’ve brought upgrades. As I said, those upgrades that we’ve brought in the past two races was difficult to judge. Now it’s a good track to judge them, and hopefully we have positive feedback out of them because these are what we believe is the right direction at the moment.

“So I hope we don’t learn something new that we didn’t understand before,” continued Leclerc. “But I’m pretty confident that we are going in the right direction and that this weekend we should see the results that we are expecting from that.”

Leclerc and Ferrari will start getting answers to those questions here in Austin on Friday.