Charles Leclerc has explained how Frederic Vasseur’s presence at the helm of Ferrari provided him with the confidence to commit his long-term Formula 1 future to the team.
Leclerc has been associated with Ferrari since 2016 and has been driving for the marque’s F1 team for the past five seasons, during which time he’s landed five victories.
However, the Monegasque driver has been unable to compete for the ultimate prize amid Ferrari’s failure to provide a package capable of competing for the championship.
But Leclerc has elected to sign a multi-year extension with Ferrari, and he has outlined that his sole intention is to deliver title success back to the Maranello-based squad.
“Obviously the contract is for many years, I cannot go into details on that,” he told media including Motorsport Week. “But the goal of this new contract is to have a title together.
“But it all depends on the situation I find myself in after this contract. I love Ferrari very, very much and the goal of my career is to win a title with Ferrari and I’ll do absolutely everything in order to win the title with Ferrari. Then for the future… I’ve just signed my new contract so I don’t want to be speaking about that now.”
Leclerc had appeared to become frustrated under the leadership of Mattia Binotto in 2022 when several mistakes contributed to his nascent championship bid unravelling.
Binotto departed at the end of that season to be replaced by Vasseur, who founded the ART Grand Prix squad that Leclerc won the GP3 title with back in 2016 and was also in charge of the Sauber-owned team when Leclerc embarked upon his F1 debut in 2018.
But despite encountering a troubled season last term that delivered below expectations, Leclerc has been impressed with Vasseur’s plans to revive Ferrari’s flailing fortunes.
“With Fred I have a lot of discussions and I’m completely on board with [the] long-term and medium-term vision that he has for the team,” he added. “That also gave me confidence to believe in the project for the future.
“However, to go into the specific of exactly how things changed is more difficult as it’s just a different way of working from Fred, there are so many particularities that are different. It’s just a different way of working. Fred is very, very clear in what he wants to achieve and the directions he gives the team, which is a good thing.”
Although Leclerc restrained from comparing Binotto and Vasseur’s management, he commended the latter’s approach to ignoring the outside noise synonymous with Ferrari.
“I think without going into comparisons of the past and now, I think one really good thing about Fred is he doesn’t really care about the outside talks around the team and he is very much focused on what needs to be done within the team,” he explained.
“He’s very straight to the point and I think that is a strength of Fred and I really like this way of working.”
