Charles Leclerc believes heeding advice to keep a humble attitude in Formula 1 has played a large part in his rapid rise in the sport.
Leclerc jumped into Formula 1 with Sauber after taking back-to-back titles in GP3 and Formula 2, and next year will join Ferrari as team-mate to Sebastian Vettel.
Leclerc has made gains through his rookie campaign, having struggled during the initial races, to emerge as a regular midfielder.
The Monegasque youngster headed the midfield contingent in Russia, which marked the first time he or Sauber had achieved the feat this season, though retired due to mechanical issues in Japan.
“Obviously you need to be confident that you can do it,” Leclerc said on dealing with racing.
“But you also need to be very humble and accept that sometimes you need to change the things and listen to the people [who have worked] in the sport for a long time for you to change that type of things.
“I’m always very open-minded in any kind of tips or things that I need to change on track or where can I get better. I think this helps a lot. Probably the biggest thing is to listen to people
“I’ve had it [advice] from different people telling me to keep the feet on the ground and always work. That’s something extremely important.
“It’s easy in Formula 1 to get with…there’s a lot of attention compared to Formula 2 and to think straight away ‘okay I’ve done it’, which is not the right mentality, so this is probably one of the [biggest] advices that helped me.”
Leclerc is sure that his attitude will not change when he makes the step up from Sauber to Ferrari for 2019.
“I think then it depends on different personalities and on different people,” he said on whether he will change.
“I don’t personally think I am like this and I don’t think I will ever become like this.
“You change a bit as a person because you are trying to protect from people that want to be your friend from one day to another just because of the success you are having, but apart from that I wouldn’t change.”
