Vasseur explains why Leclerc’s self-criticism is both a quality and a fault

Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur has described Charles Leclerc’s self-critical nature as both a “quality” and a “fault”, following the Monegasque’s post-Qualifying outburst at Silverstone last time out.

Ferrari entered the British Grand Prix’s grid-deciding session off the back of encouraging displays in Free Practice, but ended it with low-key P5 and P6 grid slots for Lewis Hamilton and Leclerc respectively.

Leclerc jumped on the radio to express his frustration over the outcome, swearing several times and even describing himself as an expletive after what he felt was a clear missed opportunity and messy final lap.

Speaking in the media pen afterwards, Leclerc sighed: “Horrible. Nothing really to say, I think the pace was there for the front row but I eventually didn’t do the job when I needed to.”

Given Leclerc’s track record of criticising himself, including his 2019 “I am stupid” radio message when he crashed during Qualifying in Azerbaijan, Vasseur was asked for his thoughts on the situation.

“For probably 10 years or so, one of the qualities of Charles is that he is able to blame himself, and one of the faults of Charles is sometimes he’s blaming himself a bit too much!” Vasseur commented.

“As a team, I appreciate a lot the fact that drivers can say, ‘Okay, my mistake’ – this is positive, because it's not bringing the team in the wrong direction and they are human.

“They are doing mistakes as everybody [does], and it’s good to have the drivers able to say this.”

Given Leclerc’s follow-up assessment that he is “really struggling” during Qualifying this season and “not putting everything together”, Vasseur went on to explain how his driver has been approaching race weekends in recent times.

“He did a real step forward in terms of race pace, perhaps also with the set-up of the car, and it’s all going into the direction to be more difficult for the Quali,” Vasseur said.

“But I remember perfectly that two years ago we were telling him, ‘Charles, we are scoring points on Sunday, let’s be more focused on Sunday, let’s be more focused on the set-up on Sunday’, because it’s Sunday that we are scoring points.”

Putting his perceived Qualifying struggles to one side, Leclerc leads new team mate Hamilton 8-4 in their mid-season head-to-heads, and holds 119 points to the seven-time World Champion’s 103.

Leclerc and Hamilton’s combined efforts, meanwhile, have put Ferrari second to McLaren in the Teams’ Championship standings after 12 of 24 rounds.