Charles Leclerc said he would close himself off for a few days after his crash at the French Grand Prix as the gutted Ferrari star "just wants to stay alone".
Leclerc was leading the race in France when disaster struck. He lost control of his rear tyres when trying to exit a corner a little too quickly, and it proved fatal to his chances of victory as he span off the track and into a tyre wall.
He screamed "No!" over team radio and cut a dejected figure as he returned to the paddock. He knew that, in throwing away the race win, he had gifted title rival Max Verstappen the chance to move 63 points clear at the top of the standings.
"I'm going to close myself at home and only go out when I have the plane to go to Budapest," said the Monegasque when asked how he plans to compose himself with the next race just a few days away. "I just want to stay alone."
Verstappen went on to win the French GP to stamp his authority on the title race. The defending champion now has a big enough buffer to still lead the standings even if he were to score zero points over the next two race weekends.
And Leclerc knows that any more errors will most likely end his chances of beating the Dutchman. He added: "I've been saying I think I'm performing at my highest level in my career but if I keep doing those mistakes then it's pointless to perform at a very high level.
"I'm losing too many points. Seven in Imola, 25 here because we probably were the strongest car on track today so if we lose the Championship by 32 points at the end of the season I will know from where they are coming from. It's unacceptable, I just need to get on top of those things."
Asked if there is anything Leclerc plans to do to get on top of those costly errors, he replied: "I go through the same process all the time. I try to analyse... the snap was a bit of a weird one, so I'll look at the data to try to understand it, but I don't know yet. To me, it is a mistake and that's it.
"I was pushing too much and I lost the rear. It's been a very tough weekend for me, I struggled a lot with the balance of the car. But when it's warm like this it's very difficult to be consistent, and it was difficult to put the laps together. I did a mistake at the wrong moment."
