British Grand Prix winner Charles Leclerc has revealed he went on a digital detox to avoid negative comments during his struggles earlier this season.
Leclerc's win at Silverstone put an end to a victory drought stretching back to the 2024 U.S. Grand Prix and saw him finish a grand prix ahead of his teammate Lewis Hamilton for the first time since the Japanese Grand Prix in March.
His pace relative to Hamilton this year had raised questions around Leclerc's performance as he struggled to marry his driving style with the demands of the latest generation of F1 cars.
"It means a lot," Leclerc said of Sunday's victory. "It means a lot because when things get tough, and that's literally the situation I've been in the last few races, obviously there's a lot of negativity around me in general, with narratives being created, and it's never a nice environment to work in.
"But to keep our head down and to keep working very hard and get the result that we got today, I'm super proud of the whole team that have been pushing me and helping me to find that feeling again with the car.
"It's only a first step and I've got to prove that on multiple track layouts. But on such a track where confidence is key, I wouldn't have been able to do that without the feeling, and so that's really good."
Leclerc said he tried to avoid the negative comments around his season, including limiting his exposure to online media.
"I think whenever there's so much negativity around, it's not something so nice to see," he said.
"You try to cancel the noise as much as possible, I try to not look at my phone and focus on what is relevant and in order to also have the right picture of the situation, because things are said and you go from hero to zero, from zero to hero, in like two days in this sport, and so it can influence then the way you see a situation.
"So no, my job was really to just try and cancel that noise, to not look at anything, to not listen to anything. And I know that I didn't become a bad driver from one day to the other. It was just a matter of finding that feeling with the car."
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Although Leclerc appeared more competitive across the Silverstone race weekend, he is not viewing the uptick in form as a guarantee he has cracked the issues that were holding him back earlier this year.
"These cars are very specific, are very different to the way we've been driving since we started racing, and so it takes a bit more time to get used to it," he said. "I was very strong for the first part of the season, then I lost a bit of feeling with the car.
"We changed quite a few things with the car and it took a bit more time than what I had wished to get back to the level I wanted. And on top of that, we've had some issues on the Sunday that cost me quite a lot of points. So altogether, it wasn't a nice situation to be in, but I'm very happy to get out of this situation in this way.
"However, as I said, it's still the beginning. It's only one race and I must not get carried away thinking that the war is over. I mean, the battle with this car has been quite a lot recently and I cannot take it for granted that now it's behind me. So, I'll keep working and try to get that feeling more often going ahead."