AUSTIN – Charles Leclerc said Ferrari can win its first constructors’ championship since 2008 after he led Carlos Sainz to a one-two finish at the U.S. Grand Prix.

Leclerc passed the duelling Lando Norris and Max Verstappen at the start and disappeared into the distance for a comfortable victory.

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The result saw Ferrari overtake Red Bull for second in the championship and move to within 40 points of McLaren.

Leclerc’s victory and the pace Ferrari showed all weekend suggested it has taken a positive step with the upgrade introduced for the weekend’s race at Circuit of the Americas.

“We’ve got to target winning the constructors’ title,” he said after the victory.

“It’s an optimistic goal but that’s what we are here for. We will do the math like any other season, until then the best thing we can do is to focus on ourself, on our own performance, just like we did this weekend.

“It’s been a really good weekend for the team and for the constructors’ title. We will try to reproduce that as often as possible, and hopefully at the end of the year when we do the math we will have won the constructors’ title.”

Leclerc, now 79 points behind Max Verstappen in the drivers’ title, said that championship would require a lot more to happen for Ferrari to be celebrating.

“If we do everything perfect until the end of the season, no matter what McLaren does, if we do better than them I think we can still clinch that title. With the drivers’ I see it a bit in a different way. If we do everything perfect it will require a bit of luck to get that title, we cannot really rely on luck.

“The drivers’ seems quite unlikely but I will believe it until it’s mathematically impossible… but [it’s] trickier.”