Charles Leclerc doesn’t rule out ‘taking risks’ racing against Max Verstappen later this season

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Charles Leclerc admits his racing against Max Verstappen could see him take more risks later this season should he reignite his Championship hunt.

Nothing short of a disastrous few weeks has seen Leclerc pick up just eight points in two races after the Ferrari star crashed out of the French Grand Prix whilst in the lead, while in Hungary an ill-advised strategy call to pit to hard compound tyres resulted in the Monegasque tumbling down the order, eventually finishing sixth.

Verstappen, meanwhile, won both races and has now stretched his lead at the top of the Drivers’ Standings to 80 points with nine races left, with the Belgium Grand Prix at Spa first up after the summer break.

Yet Leclerc, who has battled Verstappen on track numerous times this season without a collision, acknowledges that he might take more risks if he remains in contention throughout the latter stages of the season.

“It [the way you race] depends on the situation, on the person you’re facing, your opponent - how far is he willing to go?” Leclerc told the BBC.

“This year, either I had a big advantage in the championship and then you are not really willing to take those risks. Or he had a big advantage in the championship and he is not really willing to risk. Or I am not really willing to risk because I need to catch up points.

“So, I feel like the championship of last year [between Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen] was probably much more prone to see these type of things because it was so close until the very end.

“I would have expected us to be much more like this if the championship will be extremely close towards the end. [If] it’s not finished, then we might see that at the end of the year.”

Verstappen and Leclerc raced together through the junior ranks and did come together in their early years in Formula 1, but have now tided up their on-track tussles.

“When we were younger, it was a bit more messy and obviously we were kids,” Leclerc added. “But now the relationship has improved, and there’s a lot of respect.”

Having won two of the first three races of the season, Leclerc has won just one Grand Prix since - in Austria last month - and will be desperate to return to winning ways after the summer interval, with a triple-header in Belgium, Holland and Italy.