Leclerc admits Vettel has an edge in tyre management

Ferrari's Charles Leclerc believes he needs to rein in part of his aggression behind the wheel in order to better manage his tyres, an exercise for which he admits teammate Sebastian Vettel has an edge.

In Hungary, Leclerc had the upper hand over Vettel for most of the race, the pair running third and fourth behind Max Verstappen and race winner Lewis Hamilton.

The Monegasque appeared on track for a podium finish, but a degrading set of soft tyres allowed the hard-shod Vettel to overhaul Leclerc just four laps from the checkered flag.

• Brawn: 'Badly' needed win only fix for morale at Ferrari

"I was struggling quite a lot of with my rear tyres, from mid-race onwards. It was tyres going off," explained Leclerc.

"We pitted quite early on the first stint, mostly because I was struggling with tyres, and then on the second stint towards the end I've been struggling with tyres again, so there's definitely something that Seb is doing better than me in the long runs, when there's degradation."

Leclerc said the issue warranted an analysis of his driving style and perhaps a few set-up changes.

"I think I need to understand something on my side," he added.

"I've been struggling more, and have more tyre degradation compared to Seb, and I believe it's also coming from driving.

"Maybe I'm driving a bit too aggressively now in races, so I need to understand and analyse and try to improve for the next races.

"I'm pretty sure that Seb is doing something better than me there, so I need to understand and improve that. I was lacking pace at the end of the first stint and the end of the second stint.

"That's a few races where I'm quite quick qualifying, but towards the end of the race I seem to struggle a bit more.

"I need to understand what I can do with my driving style to help that, or with the car balance to have a little bit of a compromise between the two, because at the end it's the race when you score points."

Gallery: The beautiful wives and girlfriends of F1 drivers

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter