Leclerc found F1 intimidating

Charles Leclerc may be about to step up to Ferrari, but the former Sauber driver has admitted he found Formula 1 “intimidating”.

Leclerc impressed during his rookie campaign for Sauber but he admitted to being a bit shocked at the level of everything in the division.

“At the beginning, it’s first of all quite intimidating to speak to so many people,” he explained to Motorsport.com.

“Everything you are going to say is going to be analysed, not only by your engineer but by so many people.

“So obviously it’s quite, not scary, but intimidating as I said. But then you get used to it.

“And also the type of feedback you give, you can be a lot more precise with everything you say because there are a lot more people in the background.”

Leclerc initially struggled in his early days in F1 failing to score points in the first three rounds but he kicked on after an impressive sixth-place finish at the Azerbaijan Gran Prix.

Leclerc went on to speak about how the length of the races really took him by surprise.

“I remember finding the first races extremely long in Formula 1 compared to Formula 2,” he said.

“So this is something also that you need to get used to.

“After 20 laps you think that the finish is two laps away and then they tell you ‘Okay, 40 laps to go’ and you’re [like] ‘that’s quite long!’ ”