As he falls 109 points behind Max Verstappen, Charles Leclerc admits that title hopes are "looking difficult".

Heading into the summer break, Charles Leclerc, who according to some CSGO gambling sites went to Zandvoort at 7/2 to win, admitted that his hopes of beating Max Verstappen depended on him being able to 'do a Vettel' and win all the remaining races.

His task hardly got off to the best of starts when the season resumed, the Monegasque finishing sixth after being hit with an engine penalty and subsequently losing out to a poor strategic call.

While he made it to the podium at Zandvoort, this was more about Mercedes' failure to pit Lewis Hamilton, and as the German team closes to within 30 points suggests as opposed to challenging Verstappen for the title Leclerc is more likely to have his hands full fending off the Silver Arrows.

That said, the youngster does have the consolation of making what has to be the understatement of the season, when he described his title chances - with 7 races remaining - as "difficult".

"Red Bull is the faster car at the moment, especially in race pace,” he admitted. “In qualifying, I think we are very close.

"Mercedes seemed to have gained a bit of performance in race pace too so it’s looking difficult," he said of the championship.

"We are disappointed as a team,” he continued, referring to the race. “On the soft, I think we were strong, because considering we had used tyres compared to Max is new tyres, we were relatively quick.

"But then on the medium for some reason it didn’t feel as good, and the hards neither. But the surprise is mostly Mercedes on the hard tyres, they were extremely quick today. Maybe we can learn something from it.”

A winner at Monza in his debut season for Ferrari, Leclerc could hold out little hope for the Tifosi for next weekend.

"On paper, it is not our best track unfortunately, but I’m looking forward to going.

“The performance on paper will be a bit more difficult," he sighed, clearly aware that he had used that word again.

Check out our Sunday gallery from Zandvoort here.