Carlos Sainz made Mattia Binotto give Charles Leclerc a hard time, claims Schumacher

Ferrari F1 team appointed Fred Vasseur as their new team principal earlier this week and there has been a lot of speculation that the new TP will favour Charles Leclerc more than Carlos Sainz.

Leclerc has previously worked with Vassuer when he made his F1 debut with Sauber in 2018. Even before during the GP3 series in 2016, the Monegasque won the title with Vassuer’s team ART.

The 5 GP winner had a solid chance of fighting for the championship title but reliability problems of Ferrari and some blunnders of his own saw him drift away from the chances.

Speaking about Ferrari’s former team principal Mattia Binotto, F1 expert Ralf Schumacher said that Binotto was more of a Carlos Sainz fan and Leclerc suffered a bit due to that.

However, he believes that at the end performance of a driver counts as well.

“Mattia Binotto was more of a fan of Carlos Sainz, whom he also brought in. Charles Leclerc also suffered a bit from that,” Schumacher believes. “It’s different now. But at the end of the day, what counts is performance at the end of the day,” said the expert.

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Fred Vassuer can help Ferrari

Ferrari has had six team bosses since 2005: Jean Todt, Stefano Domenicali, Marco Mattiaci, Maurizio Arrivabene and Mattia Binotto and now Fred Vassuer.

And with Vassuer’s recruitment, he has the responsibility to bring the glorious days back to the Scuderia with their first title ever since Kimi Raikkonen’s 2007 victory.

But in doing so, Schumacher believes that Vassuer will have to familiarize himself with Ferrari first.

Charles Leclerc is confident ahead of the 2023 season

After finishing as a runner-up for the 2022 championship title behind Max Verstappen, Leclerc hopes to make a stronger return in the 2023 season. And with managerial changes in the team with Vassuer taking over as the TP, the Moegasque revealed that he feels quite confident.

He said that the Italian giants are doing a lot of work at the simulator and have been trying to understand what their weaknesses are to perform better in the next year.

Leclerc also revealed that Vassuer will only take over the management of Ferrari from January since Binotto will stay with the team until 31 December.

If the transition is done right between the team principals, the team won’t suffer much, added Leclerc.

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