Charles Leclerc insists the𓃲 trust he has with Ferrari Formula 1 teammate Sebastian Vettel re🎉mains intact despite confusion over a pre-race agreement in the Russian Grand Prix.

𝔍Leclerc did not fight a fast-starting Vettel on the long drag down to Turn 2, instead allowing him to move into the ꦦlead of the race by sticking to the left-hand side of the circuit, handing Vettel the benefit of a slipstream.

The move proved controversial when Vettel igno😼red initial instructions to hand the place back to Le🐟clerc, with the German concerned by the diminishing gap to the chasing Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton in third.

F♛errari ultimately put Leclerc onto the optimum strategy, enabling him to leapfrog Vettel, who later retired with an MGU-K failure in his SF90.

"I think the trust doesn’t change,” Leclerc said.

“We need❀ to trust each other, Seb and myself, because I think it’s hugely important for the benefit of the team in some situations to know that you can count on the other car and vice-versa.

"In both ways. I think it’s very imp🦄ortant but yes the trust is still here.”

Expandi♛ng on the pre-race agreem🐼ent for the start, Leclerc added: “I think everything was respected at the start.

"I went 🅷to the left to give Seb the slipstream, I knew he would overtake and we knew that. Then we just had to do the swap back and we did it at the pit stop later on in the race.

“Then our race went downwards as soon as Seb had the issue, the [Virtual] Safety Car didn’t com☂e at a great time for us. Everything was more complica🀅ted from then on.

“I actually had no reason to fight because as I said, I trusted completely in the fact that we w𒈔ould swap back after, so ther🌠e was no need to take any risks at that time.

“That’s why I just didn’t fight.”

Vettel’s stoppage ironically caused a Virtual Safe🥃ty Car that handed victory to rivals Mercedes, with Hamওilton able to make the most of a free pit stop while Leclerc was unable to drive at full speed.

Lecꦅlerc ultimately finished third behind both Mercedes drivers after making a second pit-stop to switch onto Soft tyres under a separate Safety Car pe༺riod.

Asked if he felt he could have w🧜on the race if Vettel had allowed him through earlier in the 🦂race as initially instructed, Leclerc replied: “Not if the Safety Car had been at the same time.

“To be honest that was the main thing that went wrong today but this was♚ nothing that we could have done.

“It’s a shame for the team because I believe we had the potential to do very good today and yeah, with the Safety Car at that time of the race, it was not great for us♌.”