Confident Charles Leclerc Explains How Fred Vasseur’s “Flat” Attitude Will Help Ferrari Return to the Top

Ferrari hired Fred Vasseur as the team principal this season after Mattia Binotto failed to meet expectations last year. While the Frenchman has had a difficult first season so far, the side’s results have improved recently. Star Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc, who previously drove under the leadership of Vasseur at Sauber, is fully confident that his former boss is the right man for the top job at the Prancing Horse. In a recent interview with the-race.com, the Monegasque explained how the 55-year-old’s “flat” attitude will help the team return to the top.

Under the leadership of Vasseur, Ferrari has already shown signs of improvement when compared to the start of the 2023 season. At the start of the season, the team were the fourth-fastest on the grid and now they are fighting for second in the Constructors’ Championship.

P4 in today’s race 🇯🇵 Not much we could have done better, we maximised our potential which is what we need to do in weekends where the pace is a bit less good.
A big congrats to Red Bull for the Constructor’s Championship ! pic.twitter.com/opPJWBC2Ss

— Charles Leclerc (@Charles_Leclerc) September 24, 2023

As things stand, Ferrari are currently third in the championship with 285 points, 20 points behind second-placed Mercedes. While the Italian outfit did finish second in the Constructors’ Championship under Binotto as well, they failed to capitalize on their excellent start to the season.

Following Leclerc’s couple of wins in the first few races last year, Ferrari had a dramatic fall from the top that resulted in Red Bull winning the championship. However, with Ferrari now having signed Vasseur, Leclerc is optimistic about the future again.

Charles Leclerc explains why he likes Fred Vasseur

In a recent interview with the-race.com, Charles Leclerc explained how Fred Vasseur’s “calm” and “rational” attitude is exactly what Ferrari needs to return to the top. The Monegasque believes that the way the 55-year-old analyzes situations helps the team put their results in perspective.

“His emotions are quite flat in a way, which I think is great for the team because this puts everything back in perspective. The highs are not as high as what we all feel when everything goes well! And the lows are not as low as what we all feel when it’s not going great. That is a super huge strength of Fred. And that has helped the team a lot,” explained Leclerc.

However, the 25-year-old has admitted that the team still needs to work incredibly hard over the winter this year if they are to close the gap to Red Bull ahead of the next season. As things stand in this year’s championship, Red Bull have already claimed their sixth Constructors’ Championship with 623 points, a whopping 338 points clear of third-placed Ferrari.

Leclerc explains 2024 car will be significantly “different” than the 2023 car

While speaking in an interview with Sky Sports ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix last month, Charles Leclerc informed Ferrari fans that the team are planning to come up with a completely “different” concept for the 2024 car. He hopes that the team has gathered enough learnings from this season that they could use to build a stronger car for next year.

However, he did admit that the gap to Red Bull is so huge at the moment that he is not sure if the team has learned everything they need to challenge the Milton Keynes outfit next season. Leclerc just believes that Ferrari have made a huge step in the right direction that will at least help them to close the gap to Red Bull.