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Leclerc backs Vasseur at Ferrari: "He's just starting!"

Charles Leclerc hasn't lost faith in Ferrari's new team principal Frederic Vasseur, despite a poor start to the season for the Scuderia since the Frenchman took over from Mattia Binotto over the winter.

Ferrari came into 2023 confident of giving Red Bull a real run for their money in the constructors championship having missed out last year. But that's not proved to be the case.

Red Bull's dominant form has seen them pull out an already unassailable lead in just five of the planned 23 races. Meanwhile Ferrari has slumped to fourth in the standings behind both Aston Martin and Mercedes.

Read also: Ferrari focused on developing 'more benign' SF-23 for drivers

The teams' only podium appearance to date was in Baku with Charles Leclerc finishing in third place. But the Monegasque insists he's not losing faith in Vasseur, who had been a former team boss in Formula 2.

"He's just starting this process," Leclerc told the official Formula1.com website. "Until now he was basically trying to analyse the situation as quickly as possible in order to do the best changes possible for the future.

"Obviously I speak a lot with Fréd and I know what are his middle and long term plans for the team, and I’m completely behind him and I trust him fully," he continued. "The big part of the job will be done from now on, so we will see."

©Ferrari

"I'm sure these are the right choices, and it goes in the right direction for the team," he insisted. "So for that, I'm looking forward to it, but let's wait and see.”

Leclerc was only seventh in Miami while his team mate Carlos Sainz was fifth, with both drivers complaining of handling issues and inconsistencies between different tyre compounds.

Next weekend sees them head to Imola for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, making it effectively a home race for the Tifosi with Vasseur hoping to reward them for their loyalty with a new package of upgrades to the SF-23.

“We will have updates, but honestly the issue is not the potential of the car," he said, keen to downplay expectations. "I think that when we are putting together everything we are there.

“It is more on the exploitation on the tools that we have, rather than the updates,' he suggested. "For sure we will bring updates, but it’s not the issue.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.