Despite Charles Leclerc’s recent problems in qualifying, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has supported him to get back to his best very soon.
Leclerc, who has 23 Formula One pole positions in his career, has been unable to replicate some of his one-lap wonders from previous seasons at the Scuderia so far in 2024.
Qualifying three positions behind Ferrari teammate and eventual race winner Carlos Sainz, the Monegaque driver wasted a good opportunity in Australia to take a win following Max Verstappen’s early DNF. A messy Q3 saw him trail the Spaniard by 0.250s when it mattered most.
Those issues continued at Suzuka last weekend, when Leclerc could only manage eighth place, missing out on a podium finish to Sainz, who had a four-place grid advantage when the lights went on Sunday.
While in Melbourne he complained about his car’s balance in the final segment of qualifying, Leclerc was relatively pleased with his lap at Suzuka.
However, the stopwatch never lies and he ended up behind Norris, Sainz, Alonso, Piastri and Hamilton on the grid in a close fight behind the Red Bulls.
Nonetheless, Fred Vasseur isn’t concerned about Leclerc’s problems and believes a conclusion does not need to be made based purely on the classification.
The 26-year-old missed the second row by a tenth after having only one new set of softs available for Q3 due to a poor first lap in Q1.
“You don’t have to draw a conclusion just based on the classification.
“I think where we missed a little bit the weekend with Charles yesterday was the first lap of the Q1 because he didn’t do a mega lap [on] this one.
“We had to put the second set because we were a little bit at risk. Then you go to Q3 and you have only one set.
“You are a little bit on the back foot because if I do a mistake I will be beaten. We didn’t take the right approach on the quali.
“Now I’m convinced that Charles is a competitor. He’s a good one on the one-lap quali and he will be back soon.”
Leclerc had stated in the media pen that he plans to use the time between the Asian rounds to figure out why he cannot get the maximum out of the SF-24 car on a single lap.
According to Vasseur, who worked with Leclerc at Sauber before he joined Ferrari in 2019, the very narrow margins this season have made his most recent results appear worse.
The Frenchman also reminded everyone that Leclerc was on the front row on seven consecutive occassions from the United States Grand Prix last year to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this term.
“He’s lucid on the fact that he didn’t do a good quali yesterday, that you can’t be happy when your teammate is P4 and you are P8.
“But overall we also need to have a deep look on the quali, on the session. We missed the Q1 [getting through on one set] and then we landed at the end only with one set in Q3 and finished one-tenth off the second row.
“It’s not a disaster that you are half a second or six-tenths off. It will be another one next week.
“We’ll have two qualis in China [due to the Sprint weekend]. Two opportunities to do a good job.
“But keep in mind that he was, I think, eight [seven] times in a row in the first row, between Singapore [Circuit of The Americas] and Australia [Saudi Arabia].”
Leclerc made a full recovery in the grand prix, finishing fourth after an incredible one-stop race in which he avoided pit stops by driving 26 laps on a pair of medium tyres.
