Leclerc worked to turn mental ‘weakness’ into biggest strength

Charles Leclerc says working on turning his previous mental “weakness” into a strength helped him overcome the disappointment of missing out on his first Formula 1 victory in Bahrain.

Leclerc looked set to convert his maiden F1 pole position into the win having dominated the Bahrain Grand Prix, before late engine issues cruelly robbed him of the chance to take his first victory.

He ultimately finished third after being overtaken by the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in the closing stages as he limped home in his ailing Ferrari.

Speaking ahead of this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, Leclerc admitted that he had struggled to handle the mental effects racing can have on a driver during the early years of his career but added he worked hard to turn things around to ready himself for his F1 debut in 2018.

“I think in the end my mental strength was definitely a weakness back in the karting days and I’ve worked hard on that to be as ready as possible for whenever I had the chance in F1,” Leclerc explained.

“I feel like now it’s probably my strength and I am very happy to have worked so hard on this. It was actually not so hard.

“Obviously Sunday it was more of a disappointing moment, so it is always harder in these times but overall it happens, and if anytime we have an issue we finish third we should be happy.”

The 21-year-old Monegasque believes focusing on mental training has better helped him “discover” himself and has ultimately enabled him to control his emotions easier.

“It’s very difficult to explain, because you train with sensors on your head which tells you what is happening in your head,” he said.

“So it is pretty difficult to explain into words but basically you train in front of a computer and you try to understand what is happening in your head.

“I was pretty confident before what was happening but I was actually not understanding anything about what was happening.

“You just discover yourself and manage to control yourself a lot better.”