Leclerc highlights key change in Ferrari's F1 push

Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur provides the right "balance" in his leadership at their Formula 1 team.

Vasseur came into the team at the beginning of the year, switching from Alfa Romeo to replace former Team Principal Matteo Binotto.

Many questioned whether it was the correct move for Ferrari, especially as the team attempts to mount a title challenge to Red Bull and win their first championship in over 10 years.

The Frenchman took his first win with the team just 15 races in at Singapore, where Carlos Sainz triumphed and ended Red Bull and Max Verstappen's unbeaten streak.

"Fred is super flat emotionally, which I think is really good in the position he is in because it gives us that a little bit," Leclerc told media including RacingNews365.com.

"I think as an Italian team, and as Ferrari, this is what I love most about Ferrari is the emotions that we feel. Whenever we are at highs and how passionate the people are, but to have this balance with Fred I think is also really good.

"To have the clear vision when things are going wrong, and also, when things are going very strong [and say] 'But that's not it, we still need to work very hard', I think we kind of already had that philosophy, but I think Fred has strengthened it and that's really good."

Setup work helped 'extract maximum' out of car

The team spent a lot of time trying to understand its car concept, having made a shift early in the season to a package similar to Red Bull.

This enabled it to unlock some of the answers to its lack of pace during the races, which it hopes will provide learnings for their 2024 car.

"Definitely the understanding that we had in Zandvoort, especially to have that confirmed in Monza with very different characteristics at a very different track," said Leclerc.

"That helped us to basically extract the maximum out of the car more consistently, whereas at the beginning of the year, the car was very different from one weekend to the other - so on that we improved a lot."