Charles Leclerc makes bold proclamation as Lewis Hamilton starts life at Ferrari 

Charles Leclerc has claimed that he's ready to fight for the title, and all he needs now is a car capable of being competitive throughout the season. The young Ferrari driver joined the Italian team in 2019 and has since grown into the leader of the squad.

Unfortunately for him, however, the driver has been a part of Ferrari at a time when it has struggled to put together competitive cars with regularity. The only opportunity where Charles Leclerc did fight for a title for a part of the season was in 2022, when the ground effect era first began.

It was during this time that he was battling with Max Verstappen, who had started the season by winning two of the first three races. As the season progressed, however, a few things became clear as Ferrari struggled massively with reliability and Red Bull overhauled the Italian squad in terms of performance.

Since then, Charles Leclerc has not had a title-contending car under him, even though his results continue to be very impressive. Talking to RacingNews365, the Ferrari driver claimed that now he is in a situation where he could potentially fight for the title if he has a car that is competitive throughout the season. He also expressed confidence that Ferrari as a team could beat Red Bull for the championship.

Leclerc said:

"I feel like I'm ready for the championship. We [Ferrari] just need a car that, throughout the season, is capable of doing that. I'm fully confident that the next team to be able to do that and to beat Red Bull, especially, for the championship will be us."

Charles Leclerc pinpoints one area where he has improved

The Ferrari driver also pinpointed one area where he feels he has improved. In an honest assessment, Charles Leclerc said that there were weekends in the past when he would adopt a more risky and mistake-inducing approach when the car was not perfect.

This would pay off in some cases but also be an issue in others. The driver claimed that this was one part of his game that he's eradicated, as he said:

"I did [improve]. I improved in the way that I accept more when a weekend is not going exactly the way I want. Whereas in the past, if things were not going exactly the way I want, if the car was not exactly the way I wanted, I was trying to find something within the car that was not there, and that was pushing me to do mistakes."

He added:

"That was pushing me also sometimes to do something really good when things were not there, but I felt like it was biting [me] more than it will reward me - and on that, I improved a lot. I felt like I maximised points a lot more over the course of the season, but that doesn't mean that I will never cross that line again. It's always a game of trying to get as close as possible to limit without ever stepping on it, but I feel like I've done a step forward on that, yes."

The 2025 F1 season could potentially be the one where Charles Leclerc gets a Ferrari that could consistently fight for the title. If that is the case, then it would be interesting to see how he fares against star teammate Lewis Hamilton.