Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur has backed Charles Leclerc to overcome the qualifying struggles that have hampered his Formula 1 results in recent races.
The last two rounds have seen Leclerc, who has 23 F1 pole positions to his name, unable to produce the one-lap exploits he has become renowned for with Ferrari.
The Monegaque driver wasted a golden opening in Australia as he qualified in fifth, three positions behind Ferrari team-mate and eventual race winner Carlos Sainz.
Those woes continued in Suzuka last weekend as Leclerc lost out on a podium to Sainz, who started four places higher on the grid as the former slumped to eighth.
Unlike in Melbourne where he lamented being discontent with his car’s balance, Leclerc expressed that he was dumbfounded with his relative lack of pace in Japan.
However, Vasseur is unconcerned with Leclerc’s troubles and believes the reaction has been overblown, citing that the final order doesn’t represent the entire picture.
“You don’t have to draw a conclusion just based on the classification,” Vasseur warned when asked about Leclerc’s record.
“I think where we missed a little bit the weekend with Charles yesterday was the first lap of the Q1 because he didn’t do a mega lap.
“We had to put the second set because we were a little bit at risk. Then you go to Q3 and you have only one set.
“You are a little bit on the back foot because if I do a mistake I will be beaten. We didn’t take the right approach on the quali.
“Now I’m convinced that Charles is a competitor. He’s a good one on the one-lap quali and he will be back soon.”
Leclerc had admitted post-race that he would spend the break between rounds to examine where he is struggling to extract pace from his SF-24 car over a single lap.
Vasseur, who worked with Leclerc on multiple occasions prior to Ferrari, details how the slim margins this season have conspired to make his latest results look worse.
“He’s lucid on the fact that he didn’t do a good quali yesterday, that you can’t be happy when your team-mate is P4 and you are P8,” Vasseur explained.
“But overall we need to have a deep look on the quali, on the session. We missed the Q1 and then we landed at the end only with one set in Q3 and finished one-tenth off the second group.
“It’s not a disaster that you are half a second or six-tenths off. It will be another one next week.
“We’ll have two qualis in China [due to the Sprint weekend]. Two opportunities to do a good job.
“But keep in mind that he was, I think, eight times in a row in the first four, between Singapore and Australia.”
Leclerc recovered in the grand prix to finish fourth with a remarkable one-stop race, which witnessed him take a set of Medium tyres 26 laps to eradicate a pit stop.
With Mercedes having to abandon its endeavour to pit both drivers once, Vasseur has lavished praise on Leclerc’s management for executing the plan he suggested.
“I’m still convinced that in clean air the optimum was to stop,” he contended. “But to save track position, to avoid to be in the fight, for Charles, the best one was to do one stop.
“The difference was not mega, but it’s depending on the situation and depending on your position on track.
“It’s a bit more difficult when you have to do one-stop because you have to keep everything under control and you have the temptation to push a little bit more. But I think he did it very well.”
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