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Leclerc forced into admission over his and Ferrari's F1 title chances

Charles Leclerc believes his F1-75 is good enough for him to win the F1 World Championship, but admits that the next four races are "very important" in his fight with Max Verstappen.

Charles Leclerc has billed the next four Grands Prix as "very important" for both his and Ferrari's hopes of winning Formula 1's big prizes in 2022. The Monegasque racer has seen his runaway lead in the F1 standings vanish, with his team having encountered repeated reliability problems. Their issues have allowed the in-form Max Verstappen to take the World Championship lead, and Red Bull will be aiming for their seventh consecutive win this weekend at the British Grand Prix. It leaves Leclerc almost 50 points behind as the season's midway pause, the summer break, fast approaches – and the next four races (in Britain, Austria, France and Hungary) could define Ferrari's season, he says. "I think the next four races will be very important," admitted Leclerc, speaking to members of the media, including RacingNews365.com . "It's just before the summer break, [so] to go in the holidays with four good races would be great. So now we need to focus on ourselves."

Leclerc has confidence in F1-75

Ferrari are targeting a problem-free weekend at the British Grand Prix, and Leclerc is confident that he has a car capable of fighting for the race win should his team avoid mistakes. The reliability of his F1-75 remains a concern, with the car proving to be fast but fragile during the opening races of the season. "I think the performance is there: if we get some clean weekends, I'm pretty sure the results will follow," he continued. Despite some difficult moments recently for the team, Leclerc says that they remain as motivated as ever. "We are not in the best situation with what happened in the last few races, but we are always pushing to the limit. In the end, that's what we need to do if we want to win the World Championship," he added. "I'm pretty sure that the team will push 100 per cent, I will push 100 per cent and everybody is extremely motivated to have some clear racing, and to get the rhythm and to get back the points that we lost in the last few races."

Anything is possible, says Leclerc

Leclerc is not letting his recent run of difficult weekends deter him from continuing to focus on the championship. "It's been a tough time for the team, but I think the way we have worked since the beginning of the season has been extremely good," Leclerc further explained. "So this we don't have to change. Then, of course, there has been some reliability problems that we need to fix as quickly as possible and on that, again, I trust fully the team to get on top of these things as quickly as it can be done. "It will take time but in the meantime, we just need to focus on the job we have to do on the track and I'm again very confident that if we do everything perfect on track, we have the car and we have the people inside the team for us to win races and to win the championship because ultimately that's the goal. "So in the last four or five races, it became much more difficult, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. "And I still believe in it as much as I did five races ago. It's going to be more difficult, but anything is possible."

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