Fred Vasseur on the characteristic that will make Charles Leclerc a champion

F1 News

9 January 2020 at 11:09

Fred Vasseur oversaw Charles Leclerc's Formula 1 debut season at Sauber and noticed then one characteristic that only world champions have. The young driver went on to be promoted to Ferrari and many believe that he will go on to be a world champion in the future. 

“I think it’s one of the characteristics of Charles, but mainly of champions, [to be] very, very self-confident in the car, and they can sometimes be able to do things coming from the moon because they have a huge self-confidence,” Vasseur said to Motorsport.com.

“And this self-confidence allows them, when they are out of the car, to have self-criticism, to blame themselves, because they know perfectly that they have the potential, they are a champion, and they can say ‘okay, I had a poor drive today.’

“And it’s only a champion who is able to say something like this. On paper, they are better than the others, but he’s able to blame himself – ‘OK, forget the session, I had a poor drive."

Leclerc admitted he got things wrong this season and it is that ability to then learn from the mistakes that he made which will make him a better driver.