Ferrari would give Vettel's priority to Leclerc

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto has left the door open for Charles Leclerc to take away Sebastian Vettel's "priority" in the team. Leclerc defied team orders to overtake his team-mate in Bahrain and has generally had the better of it in the opening two races.

Leclerc obeyed Ferrari's instruction to remain behind Vettel in the season-opening race in Australia, but explained that the opportunity to execute a "safe" overtake in Sakhir led him to take matters into his own hands.

Binotto said in pre-season that Vettel was the team's "champion" and the boss says his precedence remains in place, for now.

"Certainly as a team we need to give the priority to the team, and try to maximise the team's points at the end of the race," Binotto said.

"And as I said at the start of the season, if there is any 50/50 situation where we need to take a decision, the advantage would have been given to Sebastian simply because Sebastian has got most of the experience in the team, in F1.

Honoured to be part of history once again competing in a very important milestone ⭐️ #Race1000 #essereFerrari 🔴 #ChineseGP @F1 pic.twitter.com/gMTYC9IPUN

— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) April 12, 2019

"He won four championships, and certainly for us he is the driver who's got most probability to challenge for the title.

"If, as something we agreed with both drivers, in few races' time, things may change, for whatever reasons – bad luck or whatever could be the situation – we may change our position on that.

"But on the track they are free to fight, on the track I think if there is one driver who is certainly faster he will get the advantage.

"And I think that Charles, as a matter of fact, had the opportunity to be on pole in Bahrain, he had the opportunity to fight for the winning position in Bahrain."

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