Vasseur dismisses any chance of rift with Leclerc at Ferrari

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur insists there is no danger of any rift occurring between the team and star driver Charles Leclerc because of the recent downturn in on-track performance and results.

Ferrari came into 2024 optimistic of presenting a real challenge to Red Bull in this year's championship, after a blow-out performance last year which saw their rivals win all but one race all season.

That optimism appeared well-founded when Carlos Sainz took victory in the third race of the season in Australia after a brake problem for Max Verstappen, with Sergio Perez ending the race off the podium.

There was also jubilation for Ferrari at Monaco after Leclerc became the first native-born Monegasque to win his home race in the modern Formula 1 era, with Sainz joining him on the podium and Red Bull no where in sight.

That moved Ferrari to within 24 points of Red Bull in the constructors standings at the time, and within genuine striking distance of challenging for the title.

• Read also: Vasseur determined to stay on top and keep calm at Ferrari

But that early season shine has lost its lustre, and Ferrari appear to have gone into reverse after a package of upgrades failed to deliver as expected, allowing McLaren and latterly Mercedes to pass them in terms of performance.

Ferrari has now slipped to third and is now 63 points behind Red Bull, with McLaren in P2. Lando Norris has moved ahead of Leclerc in the drivers standings while Oscar Piastri is ahead of Sainz, with Lewis Hamilton closing fast.

Vasseur insists that no one at Maranello is panicking about this recent downturn in form, insisting that he will ensure Ferrari keeps on course.

Publicly Leclerc has also been fully supportive of Vasseur and of the team as a whole. However, looming on the horizon is the arrival of Hamilton as his 2025 team mate in place of of the departing Sainz.

After Monaco, Leclerc was beset by a difficult run of races that led to him to be almost being lost for words when asked by the media to explain why Ferrari haven’t been able to sustain its winning ways.

“It’s not just about Charles, it’s tough for the team,” insisted Vasseur whose partnership with Leclerc predates their time together at Ferrari and includes Leclerc's maiden season in F1 at Sauber.

“After Monaco we had a tough sequence," Vasseur told the official Formula1.com website. "What's clear is the car has been a bit more difficult to drive the last couple of events, and the level of expectation of Charles is also a bit higher.

“It’s the life of a team, that you have up and downs. We have permanent discussions with Charles. He knows the situation on our side, what we do well and what we did wrong and he knows sometimes he did some mistakes."

Vasseur said that as a result there was no finger pointing at Ferrari with one person or group trying to place the blame on another, and that this included the drivers.

“We’ve been working together for years, we know each other perfectly, we know we are pushing, we know we just need to fix things," Vasseur insisted. "It’s also where it’s good to have a personal relationship.”

Vasseur has also been impressed by Sainz, especially the way he drove to victory in Melbourne just two weeks after being sidelined with appendicitis in Jeddah.

“It’s one of the qualities of Carlos that he’s very strong in mind, he’s very consistent,” he said. "He is mega consistent, he is always there. He is very dedicated, very focused and has a good understanding of the car.”

“There are only two races I could see that were tough for him over the last 36," perhaps raising the question of why Vasseur decided to drop Sainz at the end of the year in favour of Hamilton, while Sainz will drive for Williams.

"I have enormous respect and admiration for Carlos," Vasseur told Ouest France earlier this year. "I spent ten years trying to work with him and I will have had him for two seasons with some exceptional times.

"He took me to my first podium in F1," he added. "He creates a positive dynamic in the team. But we have choices to make in life, and I think that a team today cannot not try to have Lewis.

"Lewis is unique. We need this form of stability and reference that you don't necessarily have when you have two young people, regardless of the talent of the drivers and the friendship that I have for them.

"He's the absolute reference at this level. He is also someone who knows how to balance his life wonderfully well between racing and outside of it, and that too will help Charles in his progress."

At the time Hamilton made his decision, it looked like a good deal for the seven time world champion with Mercedes struggling to recapture the form that led it to a string of titles between 2014 and 2021.

But now Mercedes is looking resurgent just when Ferrari are faltering, leading many to wonder whether it might be Hamilton who is suffering a twinge of buyer's remorse over his forthcoming change of scene.

Last month, when asked whether he would still have signed for Ferrari if he had known how the first half of the season would go for both teams, Hamilton's answer was a succinct and terse: "Yes".

Since then, Hamilton has won his own home Grand Prix at Silverstone and inherited victory from disqualified team mate George Russell at Spa, where Leclerc finished in third place and Sainz was sixth.

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