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Charles Leclerc says he found Formula 1 “intimidating” at first as he adapted to dealing with more people than he had been used to in his junior career.
Leclerc did not score a point at any of the opening three rounds of the season as Sauber struggled towards the rear of the field, but he broke his duck with a sixth-place finish in Azerbaijan in April and later recorded five points finishes at the final seven races.
That form was enough to persuade Ferrari to hand him a race seat for 2019, but Leclerc admitted he found the step up to F1 tough to begin with.
“At the beginning it’s first of all quite intimidating to speak to so many people,” he explained.
“Everything you 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.
“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.
“In Formula 2, you really try to focus on the main points because obviously there’s only one or two people maximum that are helping you to make the car better.
“It’s a different approach and it takes a bit of time to get used to.”
Leclerc added a big change he had to adjust to was the length of grands prix.
“I remember finding the first races extremely long in Formula 1 compared to Formula 2,” he said.
“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, ‘OK, 40 laps to go’ and you’re [like], ‘That’s quite long!'”