"There have been some strategy problems, there have been some reliability problems"- Charles Leclerc summarizes Ferrari's 2022 F1 season so far

Ferrari started the 2022 F1 season on an extremely strong note with a double podium and win in the season opener in Bahrain. Since then, however, they have faced plenty of difficulty in maintaining their position at the top, despite having an undeniably fast car.

Charles Leclerc led the championship standings for the first five races of the season, only to watch his chances of fighting for the title slowly and frustratingly slip through his fingers over the course of the season. Before heading into the summer break, the Monegasque outlined all that has gone wrong for Ferrari so far this year in terms of reliability issues and strategic errors.

In an interview with the BBC, Leclerc said:

“Let’s say that we know we need to work on that. We want to do absolutely everything to get better in every single thing we do, and obviously looking at the first part of this season, there have been some strategy problems, there have been some reliability problems and there have been driving mistakes.”

“On reliability and strategy, we are working extremely hard to get better. And after a mistake, we always go through exactly the same process, which is to try and analyse from where the mistakes come, why did we take the wrong decision at a certain point of the race, in order to go forwards. As soon as we understand a mistake, then we can move on.”

Admitting that he remains confident in the team's capabilities to overcome their issues, Leclerc said:

“The way that we work, because I know how tough it’s been the last few years to get back to where we are. And I know that we arrived to that level because for two years we have been working on those weaknesses of the car. So, we still have weaknesses and we need to work on them. But if we work as well as we did in the last two years on other weaknesses, I am confident we will overcome them.”

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Jolyon Palmer hints at possibility of Mercedes catching Ferrari in the championship

Former F1 driver and columnist Jolyon Palmer recently hinted that Mercedes could potentially catch up to Ferrari in the championship standings. The Silver Arrows have been swiftly progressing over the last few races, while Ferrari have watched the team lose out on straightforward wins race after race, causing the point gap between the two to slowly diminish.

In his column for F1.com, Palmer wrote:

“When the strategy is straightforward Ferrari can handle it, but in a dynamic race situation as the Hungarian Grand Prix was, they seem to hit trouble and lose points to Red Bull and Mercedes.”

“It all means that we head into the summer shutdown with Verstappen and Red Bull sailing away into the distance and Ferrari looking over their shoulders at Mercedes fast approaching, a feat you’d have struggled to believe after the way this season started.”

Currently, Ferrari lead Mercedes by 30 points in the constructors' standings, while Red Bull enjoy a 97-point advantage over the Prancing Horse.