No point dwelling on the past, insists Charles Leclerc as he targets Hungary as scene of his championship revival.

"At the end there's nothing that will help me dwelling on my mistake or staying in the past on that mistake," the Monegasque told reporters in Hungary, four days after his pitiful cry in the moments after the error that cost him certain victory in France.

"I did that mistake, it cost me lots of points," he added. "I'm aware of it, and that's it. Now I just need to move on, focus 100% for this weekend, try to do the best possible, try to win this race and then I'm sure it will go well."

Strong words, but a mighty big ask when you consider that the Ferrari star is now 63 points adrift of his title rival.

"I think we'll have a strong car," he said. "Paul Ricard and Budapest are two tracks where I struggled a bit more in the past, personally. But Australia was the case also this year and at the end I managed to have a great weekend. So I hope this weekend I can also turn things around."

Reflecting on France, before that mistake, he said: "The real pressure I had before that, when Max was really behind, then at that point Max had already moved to a non-optimal strategy. So I just had to push and focus on my own race, which I was doing.

“But then obviously when you are fighting with the limits, sometimes mistakes can happen. And I think this is a kind of mistake that I just went too far and that's it."

Asked if he had been caught out by a gust of wind, the youngster smiled and replied: "I really hate to say 'oh it's the wind, oh it's a bird' or whatever. I think I'm driving the car ultimately and I did a mistake.

"Yes the conditions change a little bit every lap and that's for everyone. It's obviously more tricky whenever you are on the limit, but again, I think everybody's on the limit."

At a time the main talking point was Sebastian Vettel's decision to retire, Leclerc, when asked about his former teammate, revealed that the German had texted him in the aftermath of Sunday's race.

"He's a friend and he always texts me," he said, "like he did after Sunday. He always tries to make me feel better when I'm having a tough time. It's nice to see how much I've grown since I first met him."

Asked his best memories of Vettel, he replied: There are loads of moments, but it's definitely not an on-track moment. It's all the moments at the factory and the way also how our relationship evolved throughout the years because I arrived the first year and I was super impressed. And I think I was probably weird to him because I was just shy and didn't know what to say when I was with him."

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