Defiant Charles Leclerc Insists Ferrari Can Beat Red Bull And Max Verstappen

Charles Leclerc left the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in defiant mood after Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix and insisted that he can overhaul Max Verstappen to win this year's world championship. The 24-year-old Monegasque Ferrari driver is 49 points adrift of Red Bull's world champion, who on Sunday reeled off his sixth win of the season, but still believes it is not an insurmountable deficit. Leclerc finished fifth after a storming, if frustrating, race from the back of the grid having been handed a grid penalty for taking a new power unit. “Reliability is a concern for everyone this season,” said Leclerc. “But if we can fix that, we have the performance to come back and so, from Silverstone, we will be trying to gain points back.

“Forty-nine points? Two victories and it is done!”

Verstappen admitted after Sunday's tense finish that he did not have the pace to beat Carlos Sainz, in the second Ferrari, without defending hard for the last 15 laps as the Spaniard did all he could to find a way to pass him and claim his maiden win.

That proved, according to the 24-year-old Dutchman, that this year's championship can swing between Red Bull and Ferrari with more twists to come.

“There is still a very long way to go in the championship and the gap is, of course, quite big, but we have seen and we know it can switch around quite quickly,” said Verstappen, who struggled in the opening three races of the year before taking the initiative.

In the back of his mind, Verstappen may have recalled that he had a 32-point lead over seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes at a similar point in the title race last year when their battle went down to the final lap of the season.

“I mean,” he added. “Race three (this year) I was 46 behind,