Photo Credit: Scuderia Ferrari
At the end of the Belgian GP, during a media session in the Ferrari motorhome, team principal Fred Vasseur analysed the weekend of his team and its drivers. In detail, the Frenchman commented on Charles Leclerc’s solid weekend, capable of performing well in all track conditions. A performance that puts an end, after some hard work, to a series of races in which the Monegasque had struggled quite a bit on track conditions that were mixed.
It was an absolutely positive weekendexperienced by Scuderia Ferrari at the Belgian GP, at least in terms of performance, and by Charles Leclerc.
A weekend that started for the Monegasque in the best way since Friday with a non-underestimated form of the SF-23 in the Ardennes and a good ease in extracting performance from the car in all track conditions, both in the wet of FP1 and on a track which gradually dried out during qualifying (with a result of getting second place, which due to Verstappen’s penalty, was transformed into a pole position).
He suffered a slight fall on Saturday, when, in the chaos of the sprint race and a slow stop in the pit lane, the driver of car number 16 driver lost the chance to get on the podium.
A situation, however, the Ferrari driver was able to erase in Sunday’s race where, in fact, he showed off a great performance for all 44 laps of the race, never making even a small mistake and always held at a safe distance the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. Ingredients which, at the chequered flag, led him to reach third place (behind the unreachable Red Bulls), obtaining a not negligible injection of confidence after a difficult period and to go on holiday with high morale, aware that in second part of the season it will be necessary for him and for Ferrari to find consistency.
Vasseur underlined and praised the work done by Leclerc to regain confidence and competitiveness in track conditions somewhere between dry and wet. He took pole at Spa after big difficulties in qualifying for Spain and Canada, or indeed during the Spielberg sprint.
“Yes, he had two difficult races in a row, qualifying in Barcelona and Canada in mixed conditions. He wanted to do some laps with slicks at Silverstone in the wet, to have a good feeling without pressure and without lap time. I think he did it and he did it perfectly.”
It’s a leap forward that does not surprise Vasseur, who has always been convinced of the value of his driver, even in mixed conditions.
“I wasn’t worried at all because I’ve known him for ages, and he’s always been performing in these conditions. I think he had a poor session that didn’t go pretty well. But I think the conditions were more than tricky, and he was a bit surprised with this.
“It’s behind us. He showed in these tricky conditions (at Spa) he was able to be consistently at the front of the pack. He did a good job.”
