Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto admits Sebastian Vettel will continue to get priority over Charles Leclerc in a “50/50 situation”.
The Monegasque is enjoying his best run of results this season currently having been on the podium at every race since Canada and out-qualified his teammate at the past three races.
At Silverstone, Leclerc finished six-tenths faster than Vettel as he took third on the grid, but while he is beginning to establish himself as potentially the lead driver, Binotto isn’t ready to change his approach from Australia just yet.
“I think we said at the start of the season that we are here to get maximum points for the team. I think the team is first,” he said via Crash.net.
“The 50-50 situation really needs to happen and as I said Sebastian was, in that case, the one with priority.
“Sebastian is still the one ahead in the championship between the two drivers at the moment, so if there would be any 50/50 certainly we will give the advantage to Sebastian.”
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The Ferrari chief was keen to acknowledge the 21-year-old’s progress and insisted nothing would be done to his detriment.
“I think as the championship is going on, Charles is certainly proving that he is a very fast driver, he’s been on pole and he had plenty of opportunities to win races. We will never stop him,” he stated.
Followed up on that, Binotto was then asked what the main areas were that Leclerc had improved in since the start of the season.
“I think first he is getting more used to the team, our way of working, knowing better his own engineers and mechanics, he’s certainly fitting more into the team itself,” he replied.
“I think the start of the season certainly everything was more new around him, his second season in F1 but with Ferrari, with the pressure to manage, with the strong drivers around him and in the same car.
“So, it’s a lot of things around him to manage and to understand and also not to distract him as well and to focus on himself and after several races he is getting more comfortable with the team, with his pace and performance and he’s more and more focused on the task to improve himself all through the weekend and race by race.”