Gerhard Berger: Ferrari "got it wrong" by favouring Vettel in 2019

Gerhard Berger says Ferrari has "got it wrong" by giving Sebastian Vettel the advantage in the first three races of the 2019 Formula 1 season. Charles Leclerc got told over the radio to let Vettel by during the Chinese Grand Prix along with other team orders earlier in the year. 

Leclerc managed to get the closest to a race win this season until he lost power in Bahrain. The four-time world champion Vettel is certainly under pressure and Berger suggests Ferrari need to rebalance their support.

“As much as I like Sebastian, and as much as I rate him, here’s a boy who is capable to win the world championship. I don’t think it’s enough to say, ‘This one is experienced, this one is not experienced, so we take the card of experience.’ I think they got it wrong," the former Ferrari driver said.

“Saying this, you always have to discuss this point in a different way – it depends where you are in the season. Last year, when we were in Monza, when [Maurizio] Arrivabene said we let everything run open when the championship was already going into the final stage, it was clear that if somebody has a chance it’s not [Kimi] Raikkonen, it’s Sebastian.

“So there I would react the other way. It’s a question of when it is and is it really giving somebody not even a chance to win the championship? And if you do it in the first or second race, I don’t agree," he told motorsport.com.