Damon Hill believes that Charles Leclerc needs to be cautious of making "rash moves", and has suggested Sergio Perez as an example of the approach to take when driving for a top team. Leclerc had been challenging Perez for P2 in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix when he slid off at the Variante Alta. His Ferrari touched the barriers, but the Monegasque was able to pit and eventually finished the race in sixth. Hill admits that a quality that sets apart the leading drivers from others is their ability to cope in a "stress situation", and highlights Leclerc's error as a move that was not going to work. "We've seen with Charles of course, Imola was an opportunity to consolidate," Hill told the F1 Nation podcast. "And he went for a move which was just a little bit too ambitious, and he called it greedy. I was watching sitting down. Literally, I almost grabbed my wife's leg as as he turned in, [when] they showed it from the onboard. "The moment he turned in, you knew it was too much. I'm not even in the car and I could see it on the telly. I was going, 'That is not going to work.' Boom, he spun off."
Hill warns Leclerc about "ambitious" moves
Hill feels that Leclerc may need to change his approach given his position as a World Championship contender. The former F1 driver thinks that Red Bull's Perez is amongst the drivers who show an awareness of the need to avoid making any overly-ambitious moves on track. "[Leclerc] just thought, 'I'll launch it over the kerb,' and it was just far too ambitious," Hill explained. "And you think, why do that when you've got so much responsibility? That's the sort of thing that you need to weed out of your portfolio as a top driver. You can't be doing rash moves like that. "You look at Sergio. Sergio's a safe pair of hands. He's quick, and he's a safe pair of hands. He hardly ever does anything crazy. He's really good." Following the events of Imola, Leclerc remains at the top of the Drivers' standings but has had his lead cut into by Max Verstappen, with the gap now standing at 27 points. Perez, meanwhile, sits in third, only five points behind Verstappen.
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