Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur Praises Charles Leclerc‘s Self-Awareness Amidst Qualifying Challenges
Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur has lauded Charles Leclerc’s ability to take duty for his performance, a trait he believes is crucial for the team’s progress, even as Leclerc himself admits to struggling in qualifying sessions this season.
“For probably 10 years or so, one of the qualities of Charles is that he is able to blame himself, and one of the faults of Charles is sometimes he’s blaming himself a bit too much!” Vasseur commented. He further elaborated on the positive aspect of drivers acknowledging their mistakes, stating, “As a team, I appreciate a lot the fact that drivers can say, ‘Okay, my mistake’ – this is positive, as it’s not bringing the team in the wrong direction and they are human. They are doing mistakes as everybody [does], and it’s good to have the drivers able to say this.”
Leclerc has openly discussed his difficulties in qualifying this year, noting he is “really struggling” and “not putting everything together.” Vasseur explained that this focus on race pace and car setup for Sundays might be contributing to his qualifying performance.”He did a real step forward in terms of race pace, perhaps also with the set-up of the car, and it’s all going into the direction to be more difficult for the Quali,” Vasseur said. He recalled past encouragement for Leclerc to prioritize Sunday performance, stating, “But I remember perfectly that two years ago we were telling him, ‘Charles, we are scoring points on sunday, let’s be more focused on Sunday, let’s be more focused on the set-up on Sunday’, because it’s Sunday that we are scoring points.”
Despite his self-assessed qualifying struggles, Leclerc has outperformed his new teammate Lewis Hamilton in their head-to-head battles this season, leading 8-4. Leclerc currently holds 119 points, while the seven-time World Champion has accumulated 103 points. Together, Leclerc and Hamilton have propelled Ferrari to second place in the Constructors’ Championship standings, trailing McLaren after 12 of the 24 rounds.
