Charles Leclerc becomes the real leader of a struggling Ferrari. Charles Leclerc is emerging as Ferrari’s true leader during a difficult start to the 2025 F1 season.

The first four races of the 2025 Formula 1 season have shown that Ferrari started off much worse than expected. The winter declarations, the nice story of Lewis Hamilton’s arrival—everything has been clearly overshadowed by the very poor performance of the SF-25 between Melbourne and Bahrain. Only in Sakhir did we see a real glimpse of competitiveness during the second stint on medium tires, followed by the usual difficulties.

The two drivers have had diametrically opposite developments from the debut at the Albert Park circuit in Australia to the chequered flag in Sakhir last weekend: both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton started poorly, from a particularly unintelligible base, and tried to find a way out through rather invasive adjustments which, on a car as sensitive as the SF-25 seems to be, rarely bring short-term solutions.

Yet last year the car gave the answers they were looking for: the SF-24 started well and was developed excellently, with the exception of those awful months following the disastrous aerodynamic upgrades introduced at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona pushed by Italian aerodynamicist and former Ferrari technical director Enrico Cardile, who, after jeopardizing Ferrari’s championship hopes, was conveniently dismissed and sent to Aston Martin. The team led by Frederic Vasseur managed to get back on track, seriously risking a win in the constructors’ championship.

Unfortunately for Ferrari fans, none of this happened, in favor of a McLaren that, unlike the Italian team, managed to maintain a very high level even during the winter, producing an MCL39 single-seater capable of beating all competitors in this start of the 2025 Formula 1 season. The papaya-colored car is extremely strong, a sign of steady growth that began in mid-2023 with the update introduced in Austria.

At Ferrari, on the other hand, they decided to overturn the platform, bringing a completely different car compared to last year’s. Was it a car with a performance ceiling? Probably. But taking such a big risk in the final season of a regulatory may be seen as reckless by many, and with a new driver on the team, the risk was piling on too much at once, with the danger of getting burned.

Ferrari was not ready for the 2025 Formula 1 championship, and Lewis Hamilton continues to have major difficulties adapting to the new car. That’s completely normal, because when you have a certain working routine and seven world titles behind you, nothing can be reset with a click. The Brit looked very discouraged on Saturday after the qualifying session for the Bahrain Grand Prix, only to recover with a fairly decent second half of the race.

On the other hand, the true leader of these first four races has been Charles Leclerc, who was almost completely overlooked throughout the winter. The Monegasque driver immediately set the tone from the first two weekends of this championship: he chose to take a completely different direction from the one originally taken at the start of the season, and the results are evident, because the fourth-place finishes in Suzuka and Bahrain are certainly not due to chance or the floor update in Sakhir.

And what if the Maranello team, at the start of the year, perhaps with the blessing of Loic Serra and Jerome d’Ambrosio, chose a setup direction more aligned with Lewis Hamilton’s preferences? That could explain the ongoing struggles of the seven-time Formula 1 world champion, possibly dazzled by the good performance in the China Sprint Race, but off the pace in the rest of the weekends held so far.

We are not talking about upgrades, as it’s still too early and insignificant, but about the setup directions being taken: you know, the champion arrives, maybe he could contribute something more in that sense. That would explain the comments and, consequently, the results achieved by Charles Leclerc in the last two races, because the Monegasque knows the car and the team around him very well. And if it really went down as we think, Ferrari would have committed a colossal own goal.

It’s clear that Lewis Hamilton still does not understand much about the SF-25, but that’s completely normal, which is why it should be the Monegasque who takes the reins as the leader at this stage of the championship, at least for now, in order to help the British driver adapt and develop a car that’s easier to understand. Ferrari’s problems are real and will continue for some time, but perhaps they should start listening more to Charles Leclerc.

The Monegasque’s comments after the first two races suggest that work wasn’t done properly at the start of the season, it’s unclear in which area, but that could be a hypothesis. Charles Leclerc has changed direction and is starting to feel more in tune with the car, while Lewis Hamilton keeps crashing into a wall he can’t break through. Everything might come together later, waiting for an aerodynamic update package that can turn this Ferrari around and give some real meaning to a 2025 Formula 1 season that otherwise would not have any.

— see video above —