Charles Leclerc says that he believes in his title challenge as much as ever despite recent results seeing him drop behind Max Verstappen by 49 points.

Leclerc started this season in superb form and found himself in an early commanding lead ahead of Verstappen after three races.

However, the tables have firmly turned in the weeks since with reliability, poor pit calls and bad luck hitting the Monegasque from all angles.

Indeed, it now looks an uphill task for Leclerc to win the title this year but it is not impossible, especially with Ferrari having a fundamentally good car, even if it needs to be more reliable than it has been in the first half of the year.

Speaking ahead of the British Grand Prix this weekend, then, Leclerc revealed that his belief in his title challenge remains as strong as ever, and that he is going to push as hard as he can to try and turn things around:

“Obviously we are not in the best situation with what happened in the last two races.

“We are always pushing to the limit at the end, that’s what we need to do if we want to win this championship.

“So on that I’m pretty sure that the team will push 100%, I will push 100% and everybody is extremely motivated to basically have a bit of cleaner races to then get the rhythm and to get back the points that we’ve lost in the last few races.

“In the last four or five races, it became much more difficult, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. And I still believe in it as much as I did five races ago. It’s going to be more difficult, but anything is possible.”

MONTREAL, QUEBEC - JUNE 18: Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Ferrari F1-75 in the wet during final practice ahead of the F1 Grand Prix of Canada at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on June 18, 2022 in Montreal, Quebec. (Photo by Clive Rose/Getty Images)

Leclerc has had a really up and down campaign with the way things have gone for him in the past few weeks, and he'll just be eager to try and get back to winning ways as soon as possible and see where that can take him.

Max Verstappen is in superb form at the moment, though, and the Red Bull looks very strong indeed, so it's clear Leclerc and co. have their work cut out.