Leclerc targets wins over second place with five F1 races left in 2026

Charles Leclerc has played down the significance of finishing second in the 2026 Formula 1 drivers’ championship, insisting race wins are his true target as the season enters its final five rounds.

The Ferrari driver sits fifth in the standings on 233 points, nine adrift of fourth-placed Max Verstappen and just nine behind the top-two battle between George Russell (242) and Lewis Hamilton (241). With Kimi Antonelli expected to clinch the title at this weekend’s Mexican Grand Prix, the fight behind him is fiercely compressed.

Leclerc arrives in Mexico City with momentum after back-to-back runner-up finishes in Singapore and Austin, but his ambitions stretch beyond points accumulation. “What matters for me the most is to maximise every race, race after race, and targeting to get some wins before the end of the season,” he said. “If we manage to do so, then the P2 will be the natural end to the championship, but if not, then we’ll struggle finishing P2, but it’s not that I’m obsessed finishing P2 in the drivers’ championship.”

Leclerc has taken only one victory in 2026, his Silverstone win, and acknowledged that further wins are far from guaranteed. “I feel like we are in a good momentum at the moment,” he said. “Whether winning will be on the table, this we’ll have to see, because we are definitely against very strong opponents and it’s not every weekend that we’ve got the pace to win a race.”

His outlook is echoed by Russell, the man he is chasing. The Mercedes driver was equally dismissive of second place as a meaningful goal. “For every driver on the grid, there’s only one position that matters and it’s P1,” Russell said. “And to be best of the rest is not really something you dream of as a kid. As long as it’s not P1 in this sport, it’s kind of that or nothing, really.”

With Verstappen also in the mix on 236 points, the battle for the championship’s secondary honours looks set to go down to the wire across the remaining five races.