Running Ferrari, the most iconic team in Formula 1, is no small feat. In fact, Fred Vasseur, Ferrari’s current team principal, arguably has the toughest job in the sport. The weight of Ferrari’s history and the overwhelming expectations of fans, particularly in Italy where the Scuderia is seen as a national treasure, make it a daunting task.
Vasseur took the reins from Mattia Binotto at the end of the 2022 F1 season, with Ferrari hoping that new leadership would end their title drought. The team has not won a Constructors’ Championship since 2008, and their last Drivers’ Title was back in 2007, when Kimi Raikkonen triumphed.
While Ferrari is still chasing that elusive championship success, Charles Leclerc, fresh off his 2024 Italian Grand Prix victory, believes Vasseur has already made significant changes, particularly to Ferrari’s emotionally driven team culture.
Leclerc, speaking on F1’s Beyond The Grid podcast, highlighted the cultural shift Vasseur has introduced, noting that managing Ferrari is a unique challenge due to the immense passion within the team. “Ferrari is such a huge team with so much history that it’s not the easiest of tasks to do something like this,” Leclerc said.
He emphasized that while Ferrari’s passion is a core value, it can sometimes backfire in tough times. “Passion also means emotion, and sometimes when it goes very bad, it can affect more the people inside the team than in any other teams,” Leclerc explained. However, he noted that this same passion drives the team to push harder during difficult moments, giving 200 percent effort to overcome setbacks.
According to Leclerc, Vasseur has been instrumental in harnessing this passion and transforming it into a more balanced and effective working environment. “Fred has changed quite a few things, which made a really big difference,” he said, emphasizing Vasseur’s ability to understand and optimize each individual’s performance within the team.
One of Vasseur’s standout qualities, according to Leclerc, is his emotional steadiness—a trait that has become invaluable to a team like Ferrari, where emotions can run high, especially after a good race. “Fred is always the balance,” Leclerc said. “Whenever you are having a really good race with Ferrari, everybody feels so good, so happy, and Fred is always the balance of saying: ‘yeah, it’s great, but now let’s recentre a little bit because it’s only one race and we’ve got many other races.’”
Leclerc also praised Vasseur’s leadership during tough moments, describing how the team principal always finds ways to remotivate the team when spirits are low. “Fred is always there to give us the positives in a difficult situation to remotivate everybody,” he added.
Leclerc concluded by expressing his full confidence in Vasseur’s approach, emphasizing how essential his emotionally grounded leadership is for a team like Ferrari. “He’s very emotionally flat and that is a really good thing for a team like Ferrari. That’s what is needed in Ferrari, so I’m completely confident and I have full trust in what Fred does,” Leclerc said.
As Ferrari continues its pursuit of championship success, the cultural shift under Vasseur may be just what the team needs to return to its winning ways.
