​A crash in Monaco. A technical fault at Barcelona. A lowly eighth in Austria. Charles Leclerc had never endured such a poor run of form since Ferrari’s tricky 2020 Formula 1 campaign – but he ended it in the best possible way at Silverstone.Leclerc took the lead at the start in Northamptonshire and dominated the race to claim his first grand prix victory since the 2024 Austin round, though championship leader Kimi Antonelli’s challenge was thwarted by a broken wheel shield.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementRead Also: Toto Wolff: I stand by Mercedes’ performance focus, but now we must sort reliability The contrast could hardly have been starker. Of course, it was even more manifest due to team-mate Lewis Hamilton’s upturn in form of late – which the seven-time world champion partly attributed to no longer using the simulator in Maranello – and Leclerc’s own issues.In Monaco, the home hero blamed his crash from third on his brakes – even though supplier Brembo disagreed – and he suffered another shunt of his own making in Barcelona qualifying before a hydraulics issue took him out of the race as he lay sixth.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementCharles Leclerc, FerrariAt the Red Bull Ring, Leclerc qualified second, but Ferrari lacked race pace – so did the Monegasque relative to his team-mate – and he ended up a lowly eighth under the chequered flag.So, by the time F1 went to Silverstone, there was talk of Leclerc needing to bounce back – but team principal Fred Vasseur insists his driver’s performance always looked decent on data and was simply hindered by circumstances.“That means that you are not putting things together, and the others are scoring points, and you have the feeling that you are losing a little bit the path of this,” Vasseur said after the race. “But in terms of performance, I was still optimistic with Charles, because we saw that on data that he was there, he was always there on the laps, and it’s paying off today – or this weekend.”AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementKey to Leclerc’s improvement was set-up work and a switch to Hamilton’s Carbone Industrie brake discs. Now, Vasseur believes the 28-year-old’s return to victory will provide a substantial gain when it comes to his state of mind.“I think the result of today is the best boost of the confidence that he can have at first,” the Frenchman said.Frederic Vasseur, Ferrari“As we are developing the car from the beginning of the season, we need to readjust the set-up each time. On top [of that], Charles had a change of brakes a couple of races ago. We [had] to reshape a little bit everything. But it was not just a matter of performance, performance was there. I think it was more a matter of confidence. And this will help him massively today.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement“He found the confidence that each step of set-up is not making a proper difference in terms of lap time, but sometimes it’s giving them confid