Ferrari and Charles Leclerc hold ‘long discussions’ after alarming post-Monaco slump

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur has urged people to avoid drawing a “generic conclusion” over the form of Charles Leclerc, with his driver having endured difficult results since winning the Monaco Grand Prix.

Leclerc took an emotional victory at his home race back in May, but a P5 finish in Spain is his only points finish in the four races since, retiring in Canada and finishing outside the points in both Austria and Great Britain.

Ferrari boss addresses recent ‘bad momentum’ for Charles Leclerc

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher and Sam Cooper

Leclerc started 11th and finished the British Grand Prix a lap down in 14th place as he labelled his recent races “worse than a nightmare”, with a variety of issues having combined to have halted his progress this season.

Vasseur explained the reasons behind his struggles at Silverstone over the weekend, driving an unfamiliar car setup in difficult conditions in a Ferrari that is proving “not easy” to handle as it stands.

On top of that, the Ferrari team principal added that because the team is looking to help him, their is an element in which they are looking to “compensate” for their form – but he explained why this is a “mistake”.

“First, we have to avoid to draw a generic conclusion on what’s happened – we need to have a deep look on everything,” Vasseur told media including PlanetF1.com at Silverstone when asked about Leclerc’s recent form.

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“I think the car the last two races was at least not easy to drive, and it was asking a lot to the drivers, mainly for [Saturday], that Charles had the new package on Friday, he has to jump into the car and do the FP3 with the wet and he had to go in quali with a car that he didn’t drive before.

“And he was in very good shape until Turn 13, and otherwise, we spoke together about this yesterday, but he was faster than Russell until Turn 13 [in Q2].

“But for sure, I think that we are really at the limit of the car, and the car was not easy to drive in these conditions, but we are doing more mistakes.

“And it’s true that as soon as you have a kind of bad momentum, let’s call it like this, that you have the feeling that you have to compensate – and this is a mistake from the team, from the drivers, from everybody – because you can’t compensate.

“Basically, you have to be at the limit. It means that if something is going a bit less good, you can’t do more than what you were doing before and I think it’s why a part of the reason of the call today on the strategy is that, starting P11, that he had a very good start but he came back behind Stroll, he lost 10 seconds behind Stroll and at one stage when you are 15 seconds off Carlos or Verstappen, you know that if you don’t do something mega you won’t come back and it’s probably part of the issue.

“But I had a long discussion with Charles, we agreed on this, and we’ll come back to the to the reasons.”

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