Charles Leclerc offered lifeline in title battle with Max Verstappen by Martin Brundle

Max Verstappen makes subtle dig at Lewis Hamilton

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Martin Brundle has raised hopes that Charles Leclerc can still challenge for the title, despite Ferrari not winning the last five races. Leclerc has lost bucketfuls of points over the last three Grands Prix as Ferrari threw away their early title advantage to Max Verstappen.

The Monegasque has retired from two of the past three races after mechanical failures at the Spanish and Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Meanwhile, title rival Verstappen won both as he capitalised on a poor start to take control of the world championship.

Leclerc also looked on course to win the Monaco Grand Prix on home turf before strategy errors cost him the win, handing it to Sergio Perez. However, Sky Sports reporter Martin Brundle has warned Leclerc can still believe things will turn around like they did for Verstappen.

The Dutchman has also suffered mechanical failures this season after retiring from the Bahrain and Australian Grands Prix. After Melbourne, Verstappen was over 40 points behind Leclerxd and all hopes of challenging for the title looked to be over.

Brundle said: “Red Bull have been on a roll and incredible scoring. They’ve won the last five races between the two drivers.

“With the unreliability that Charles Lelcerc had in Barcelona and Baku, the strategy problems in Monaco, he’s gone from leading the world championship by 40 points on race day in Imola to being well over 30 behind now. That’s a huge turnaround and he must be hurting.

“But I guess like Max found out early on in the season, you’ve got to believe it can turn around just as quickly in your favour.” His comments come just days after Damon Hill also stressed the championship was far from over.

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The 1996 champion claimed reliability was likely to play a huge factor in the championship and predicted Red Bull to still struggle at some stage this season.

He told the F1 Nation podcast: “I think there’s definitely reliability questions still on the side of Red Bull as well. I don’t think they are completely on top of everything yet. These are new cars, things will happen between now and the end of the season. I think it’s all to play for. Because it’s spread around between quite a few cars I think the championship is still very tight for this stage.”

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