Leclerc unconcerned with F1 team pecking order before Australian GP

Charles Leclerc says he’s ignoring all talk about where each Formula 1 team is in the competition order heading into the 2020 opener in Australia.

While Ferrari remain adamant Mercedes are ahead in terms of performance following pre-season testing, while the reigning F1 world champions are convinced its rivals are hiding its true pace, Leclerc isn’t concerning himself with the speculation on how each team is doing.

Instead, Leclerc feels ignoring the chatter about performance and mind games will help both him and Ferrari focus on preparing the SF1000 for the Australian Grand Prix and the full 2020 F1 campaign.

“I just focus on driving to be honest,” Leclerc said. “Anything that is talk, talk doesn’t really matter in the end.

“I’m just focusing on my own job and trying to improve from where we are. We’ve got a lot of work to do so I try to focus as much as possible on what’s concerning me.”

Leclerc also feels the relative performance of each F1 team going into the opening round isn’t as important compared to the in-season development push over the course of the full campaign.

All F1 teams are already balancing their 2020 efforts with early preparations for the 2021 rules overhaul, meaning development trends towards the latter part of this season are likely to tail off.

Leclerc hopes Ferrari can take advantage of the situation to gain an edge on its rivals both this season and going into 2021.

“I believe that last year we had quite a big improvement from the first race to the last race,” Leclerc said. “I think we got closer to Mercedes.

“We just need to put our head down, try to focus on ourselves as always and I’m confident that we will make the steps forward and the ones we need to get closer in the case we are behind at the first race.”