Leclerc reveals biggest lesson learned from Vettel at Ferrari

Charles Leclerc has revealed the biggest lesson he has been able to learn from Sebastian Vettel from their time together as teammates so far at Ferrari in 2019.

Leclerc stepped up to a Ferrari race seat for just his second season in F1 after impressing through his rookie season with Sauber, and has regularly matched Vettel for pace throughout the opening 12 rounds of 2019. Vettel sits 24 points clear of Leclerc in the drivers' championship, out-podiuming his young teammate 6-5.

Asked what he had learned from Vettel during their first half-season as teammates, Leclerc identified the four-time world champion's precision as being one of his biggest strengths.

"I think the way he is so precise with everything he does with the car," Leclerc said.

"I think this is something that I noticed straightaway whenever I listened to him for the first time during a post-session meeting.

"On that, I still think I have some improvements to do."

Leclerc has quickly adjusted to life with Ferrari despite conceding the size and scale of the team took some getting used to, leaving the Monegasque youngster content with his start to 2019.

"I’m happy how the first half of the season went on my side. I’ve grown a lot as a driver," Leclerc said.

"Obviously there have been a few mistakes from which I’ve learned from. At the beginning of the season, I think one of my issues was the qualifying pace. I was struggling in qualifying, I did quite a lot of effort in it, and I think since a few races ago now, it has got quite a lot better.

"I think the race pace was quite strong from the beginning. There are definitely some things I can still improve on, and this will be like this until the end of my career, you can always improve.

"But I think in terms of setup, I can still improve. This will come with experience, but I also need to try and understand even more the car, and try to lead the engineers in the right direction even better."