Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc stated ahead of the 2026 Austrian Grand Prix weekend that Lewis Hamilton's victory at the Spanish GP had strongly motivated him. Leclerc, who was unable to finish the race in Barcelona due to a sudden technical problem, wants to present a different picture at the Red Bull Ring.<\/p>\n
Leclerc, who predicts Mercedes will have the upper hand in terms of power balance at the Austrian track, doesn't expect this to completely reverse. The Monegasque driver said, "I think Mercedes will have the fastest car in the overall performance comparison." However, he added that high temperatures could give Ferrari an advantage: "We worked very efficiently with the tires in hot conditions; we want to be able to reflect this strength this weekend." On the other hand, he acknowledged that the long straights at the Red Bull Ring, combined with Mercedes' superior power unit, could impose an additional cost on Ferrari. "Therefore, Mercedes is still a rival to be overcome," he emphasized.<\/p>\n
Leclerc, who declined to share details of the technical issue that led to his retirement from the Spanish GP, said the problem arose suddenly. However, he stated that he did not think the issue posed a serious risk for future races. 'The last two weekends have been very difficult for the team; now I want a clean race Saturday and Sunday and to get back to where we need to be,' he said.<\/p>\n
Ferrari's contribution to ending Mercedes' winning streak at the Spanish GP through Hamilton has also motivated Leclerc. "Seeing Lewis win made me want to relive that feeling," said the driver, adding that while they haven't had a car like that in recent years, they now feel they are at a pace capable of winning races. He also emphasized that his job is to fight at the front of the grid, just like Hamilton did in Barcelona.<\/p>\n
After Hamilton announced he was back in the championship race, Leclerc responded more cautiously to a similar question. 'To be honest, the championship isn't even on my mind right now,' he said. Leclerc emphasized that his priority was to regain his driving rhythm; if he could achieve that, multiple victories could follow, and they would discuss the championship at the end of the season.<\/p>\n
Leclerc also expressed his satisfaction with Ferrari's continuous development throughout the season. The French-born Monegasque driver stated that he had seen numerous changes to the car since the start of the season, saying, "The number of weekends we brought updates to sometimes exceeded the number of weekends we didn't; the pace of production by the team at the factory is very positive for the team.".<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Charles Leclerc, tak\u0131m arkada\u015f\u0131 Lewis Hamilton’\u0131n \u0130spanya GP’deki galibiyetinden ilham ald\u0131\u011f\u0131n\u0131 ve Avusturya’da temiz bir hafta sonu ge\u00e7irerek kazanma ritmine d\u00f6nmek istedi\u011fini a\u00e7\u0131klad\u0131.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1242,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[656,85,24,10,657,22],"class_list":["post-1231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-f1","tag-avusturya-gp-2026","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-ispanya-gp-2026","tag-lewis-hamilton"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Charles-Leclerc-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1231"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1243,"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1231\/revisions\/1243"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frenyok.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}