Charles Leclerc shares opinion over critical F1 rule change in Japan

Charles Leclerc does not believe that changes to the energy recharge limits during qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix will "be a game-changer" of a solution.

Ahead of the weekend at Suzuka, the FIA has reduced the amount of harvesting permitted during the grid-setting session from 9.0 megajoules (MJ) to 8.0 MJ.

With the circuit being a power-hungry and energy-poor track, this will go some way to alleviating the need to lift and coast and super clip during qualifying.

However, the Ferrari driver thinks further changes will be required to fully remedy the problems seen on Saturday in F1's new regulations era.

Speaking to media, including RacingNews365, the eight-time grand prix winner said: "I don't think it will be a game-changer.

"It will be pretty, pretty similar — apart from for the driver, where maybe a little bit less lift and coast, which is, I think, a good thing.

"I think for qualifying, there are still some changes that needs to be done to make sure that we can push at the maximum, whatever the limit of the car is, but at the moment, so far for the first two races, it was more about managing everything properly in qualifying, rather than the actual flat out push that we were used to in Q3 in the past years.

"So there's still some fine-tuning to be done on that, but I don't think that this particular change will be a game-changer for this weekend."

Agenda pushing

However, when the Monegasque driver was questioned on what changes he would like to see implemented, he declined to provide specifics.

The 28-year-old also cautioned against various drivers and teams pushing their own agendas when suggesting potential alterations to the rules.

"I don't really want to go into the details of this because it's so complex, and there are so many different little things that you can do," Leclerc said.

"And I also think that, obviously, whenever there are these kinds of changes, everybody's pushing a little bit of their agenda.

"Just whatever solution that helps us to push at the maximum of these cars, because that's what I love about the sport, really: when you get to Q3, and you have the maximum pressure on you to deliver at best at that moment, and you try and do a lot that you haven't done before.

"And at the moment, this is not possible, because every time you do something that you haven't done before, the car is just trying to adapt to it, and it makes you lose more than what you gain.

"So I think this is the biggest problem at the moment. The solutions are very, very, very complex.

"But I know that everybody is trying to brainstorm ideas in order to find the best solution, and hopefully, we will come up with a good solution very soon."