Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto leapt to the defence of Charles Leclerc after he crashed out of the lead of the French Grand Prix and backed the Monaco native to come back from the mistake as a better driver.
Leclerc took full responsibility for his unforced error at Paul Ricard, which handed a routine victory to runaway championship leader Max Verstappen.
The Monaco native also spun out of second position at April’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, costing him a handful of points.
Due to a combination of his own mistakes, Ferrari strategy blunders and reliability issues, Leclerc has seen a comfortable early championship lead evaporate and he now trails the Red Bull driver by 68 points, just seven points shy of three whole race victories worth of points.
Although Leclerc was critical of himself on Sunday, Binotto felt the mistake was an uncharacteristic moment.
“I think it’s a bit of an unfair judgement,” Binotto said on whether Leclerc is error-prone. “I think he was driving certainly at the limit. There are things that may happen when you’re driving to the limit.
“Why it happened, [we will see if] is there anything else, we take our time with him to discuss, and to judge, but at the moment there is no reason to blame him.
“I’m pretty sure he will learn. We have always seen that Charles is reacting very strongly and well to when he’s doing mistakes. And I’m pretty sure that he will be back in Hungary stronger and hungry.”
F1’s season continues with the Hungarian Grand Prix on July 31, the last race before the championship has a three-week mid-season break.
