21 March 2023 , 18:54
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Charles Leclerc is "frustrated" and becoming more demanding of Ferrari, believes one former Formula 1 champion.
The Monegasque may well still be smarting from the collapse of his title challenge last year. Ferrari kept making mistakes and were also affected by power unit reliability woes, while Leclerc also made a few mistakes himself like his crash when leading the French Grand Prix.
Mattia Binotto resigned at the end of last season and Frederic Vasseur has replaced him as team principal. But the size of his job has been laid bare by a tough start to the 2023 campaign. After the first two races, the Scuderia sits fourth in the constructors' standings.
Ferrari's car performance is behind that of Red Bull and Aston Martin in these early stages of the year, while Mercedes were comfortable ahead of them in Jeddah last weekend. To make matters worse, engine reliability is still a problem.
Leclerc served a grid penalty in Jeddah after taking his third control electronics component of the season, following his power unit failure in Bahrain. Amid his team's difficulties, double world champion Emerson Fittipaldi thinks the 25-year-old might be losing his faith in the team.
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"I think that Charles is demanding a lot from his team because of what has happened last year," the Brazilian told Kelbet. "He probably felt that the time wasn't completely there [at the Saudi GP] because of the issues recently.
Emerson Fittipaldi thinks Leclerc has 'lost some confidence' in Ferrari (Getty Images for Laureus)"Charles probably lost some confidence in the team and he is frustrated because of last year. Now, he should be very grateful to have Frederic Vasseur on the team because he knows how to perform.
"Frederic Vasseur is the team manager and I'm quite sure that they will improve. He is very experienced. I really like Frederic a lot and I think it was a very good idea by Ferrari to get him to take over."
Fittipaldi also thinks Ferrari's performance in Jeddah showed where they are strong – and where improvements need to be made. He added: "They looked fast in the qualifier but they have to improve their performances in the race.
"Again, Charles was good in the qualifier and he was much better than the other guys but I don't think he can perform that well in the race with the current package. Their tire performance with the package they're running was not ideal. The tires degraded quite easily. But I'm sure that Ferrari will improve."