"The fourth place in the drivers’ means absolutely nothing": Charles Leclerc not too interested in driver standings at Abu Dhabi GP

Charles Leclerc is not too interested in the battle for P4 in the championship that is on the line heading into the Abu Dhabi GP. His recent surge in form with a P2 finish in Las Vegas means he finds himself in the quartet of drivers trying to secure P4.

The quartet are Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, Lando Norris and Charles Leclerc himself. While the Ferrari driver is P7 in the standings with 188 points, his teammate is in P4 with 200 points. All four positions in the championship standings could change by the end of the weekend, as the gap is not too big.

However, Leclerc is not too interested in the fight for P4 but is more concerned about the battle for P2 between Mercedes and Ferrari in the constructors championship, telling F1TV:

“The fourth place in the drivers’ (means) absolutely nothing. The second place in the constructors’ though is nice. Honestly, I would really like the team to be second at the end of this weekend. We’ve had a tough season, and everybody deserves it."

He added:

“They’ve worked like crazy in order to bring the upgrades earlier, and it would be deserved to be in second at the end of the year, so we’ll do absolutely everything for that.

"And then in the drivers’, honestly I don’t have too much hope of finishing fourth. If this happens then good, if not I don’t really mind. I just want to win that championship as soon as possible.”

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Charles Leclerc hoping to take advantage of the limited running for Mercedes

Talking about the weekend ahead on Friday, Charles Leclerc compared the weekend to a sprint weekend, as the running in FP2 was compromised due to multiple red flags.

There's optimism as well because Ferrari tend to do better with limited running compared to Mercedes who seem to gain a lot due to simulations. Looking ahead to Saturday, Leclerc said:

“It’s going to be a tricky weekend. I think we are going to go into the race with as much information as we do on a Sprint weekend maybe, where we have very little info, so it’s going to be very interesting, and we’ll try to maximise the little information we have, and, normally, it’s one of our strong points, so I hope we can take advantage of that and beat Mercedes.”

Charles Leclerc might be pivotal for Ferrari's fortunes this weekend, especially with teammate Carlos Sainz crashing out early in FP2 and having limited running.