Charles Leclerc praises Fred Vasseur’s ‘clear vision’ after Ferrari F1 contract renewal

Charles Leclerc has praised Frederic Vasseur’s impact at Ferrari after his contract renewal was announced ahead of this weekend’s F1 Hungarian Grand Prix.

On Thursday morning, Ferrari announced that Vasseur had signed a new multi-year F1 contract extension.

Vasseur has been Ferrari team principal since the start of the 2023 season, having taken over from Mattia Binotto.

Under his leadership, Ferrari narrowly missed out on the F1 constructors’ title in 2024, finishing 14 points off McLaren.

The arrival of Lewis Hamilton sparked an unprecedented amount of pre-season hype, which Ferrari haven’t lived up to.

Ferrari haven’t won a race in F1 2025 and sit in a distant second in the championship.

Their poor form led to intense speculation about Vasseur’s future.

However, Leclerc and Hamilton publicly backed Vasseur when reports emerged.

Leclerc reacted to the news by speaking ahead of the Hungarian GP this weekend.

“I am really, really happy,” Leclerc said. “It’s not that it’s coming as a surprise but I am really happy, especially in the past month there were quite a few rumours, like there’s always been the case around the team so to finally have the official news out is important. I am really happy.”

“Without going into comparing the different eras, I think Fred has an incredible vision and what is very difficult within Ferrari is the emotion is very much a part of the daily job because Italian people in general and that’s what makes Ferrari so special are extremely passionate about Ferrari but Fred really knows how to leave his emotions aside and have a clear vision on where we are at no matter how much noise there’s around the team so this is very important. Apart from that, he’s got many more qualities.

“One of them is also to extract the maximum out of every single person at the factory. This, when you put everything together makes a big difference.”

Leclerc notes key Vasseur quality

Leclerc was keen to point out that Vasseur’s personality is perfectly suited to Ferrari.

Over the years, Ferrari have been criticised for being 'too Italian' and thus, too emotional.

“He definitely changed the way we are working on different things, but again, where Fred made the biggest difference is his overall vision,” Leclerc explained.

This, he definitely embedded into the team and that’s very, very important. As I said, I feel like the beauty of Ferrari is the fact that emotionally speaking it’s quite intense but it can also harm us in some ways, especially in tougher times.

“Fred has always had a very cold blood in those moments and help the team to just be a little bit more lucid. That’s probably the biggest thing that Fred brought to the team.”