After keeping pace with his great title rival Max Verstappen, Leclerc remained in charge of the French GP when the Red Bull driver pitted looking for the undercut .
Ferrari opted to keep Leclerc on track on medium tires rather than immediately take cover from Red Bull’s attack, and the Monegasque went off track and crashed at Turn 11 when he lost the rear of his car on lap 18.
Unable to get his car out of the barriers, Charles Leclerc was forced to retire for the third time this season.
Verstappen took advantage of it to take victory at the Paul Ricard, and Leclerc is already 63 points behind in the drivers’ standings with 10 races to go (with 12 disputed).
Despite the fact that on the radio he blamed the accelerator (which had already failed him in Austria) for his accident, Leclerc did not believe that his abandonment was caused by a mechanical problem before the media, and added that he feels that he has dropped 32 points in 2022 due to errors own despite “performing at the highest level” of his career.
“No, it wasn’t [a mechanical problem]. Or at least I still don’t know if it was,” he said when asked by Motorsport.com to explain his accident.
“But, it doesn’t seem like it was, it was just a mistake.”
He added: “Obviously it’s extremely frustrating. I feel like I’m performing at the highest level of my career since the beginning of the season, but there’s no point in performing at that high level if I make these mistakes.”
“I think it’s 32 points in total [he has lost due to errors], today I think 25, because it was likely that we were going to win, since we were fast.”
“And 7 at Imola with another mistake of mine, so at the end of the year we’ll do the count again, and if I lose the world championship by 32 points then I’ll know it was because of me and that I didn’t deserve the championship.”
“But for the second half of the course I have to get my act together if I want to be world champion.”
Leclerc also noted that the car did not do anything strange before the accident, but that it has had “a very difficult balance all weekend” and that the heat “makes it difficult to be consistent” lap after lap.
Asked what he thinks of his own title chances at the moment, Leclerc added: “I’ll believe in it until the end and in the end I’ll count it down, but right now it’s not looking good.”
Then, in words to DAZN F1 , he kept the speech: “It was a mistake, nothing special.”
“I’ve had consistency problems and I’ve made a mistake where I shouldn’t have. I haven’t been good enough, no excuses. I’m competing at a high level, but if I make these mistakes I don’t deserve the World Cup,” he concluded.
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