After a tough few seasons falling behind Red Bull and Mercedes, Ferrari got back to their winning ways at the start of 2022. The team looked like they were going to be tough to beat in the opening few races, as Charles Leclerc took victory in two out of the first three. Early on, the F1-75 seemed to be the car that would make Ferrari challenge for titles again but, as the season went on, problems started to occur. Mistakes with strategy, reliability issues, both drivers going over the edge and crashing out of races all caused a lot of negativity around the Scuderia. Speaking exclusively to RacingNews365.com , Leclerc discusses his experiences in the team in light of this criticism. "I don't focus on that," he begins. "I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of negativity around us, but I don't think we should focus on that. This is not going to help us go anywhere. I think we just should focus on our things." Leclerc is not averse to criticism, often being heard on the team radio after a crash blaming himself for the mistake and apologising. But he takes a different approach to errors that were caused by the team. "I'm always much more vocal about my mistakes than anybody else, when I'm in the media," he explains. "Whenever we do mistakes as a team, I prefer to tackle it in a different way, not speaking publicly but inside the team, for it to be clear inside the team and this is my approach."
Is the criticism of Ferrari fair?
In the age of social media, people can quickly judge and fire criticism towards a team or driver. Leclerc feels that a lot of it can be done without knowing the full picture of what is going on behind the scenes. "When things are going badly, people are criticising and sometimes without any reasons behind it," says the Monegasque. "Formula 1 is a very, very complex sport. I think it's very, very difficult to understand what exactly is going on until you are actually working inside your environment." However, much to the dismay of people posting on Twitter, Leclerc insists that the team don't focus on what is said on those platforms and instead look at the job in hand. He adds: "We shouldn't get affected by whatever is going [on] around us. [We should] just stick with the work we have to do, be very honest within the team, and work form there."
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