Morale at Ferrari has improved significantly after Charles Leclerc’s first podium of the season at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. After a very complicated Saturday, the Monegasque driver delivered an exceptional race in terms of tire management and pace, maintaining strong performance both on Medium and Hard compounds. He made an unstoppable recovery on George Russell, eventually overtaking him, and also managed to defend himself against the final attacks from a fired-up Lando Norris. The Jeddah race showcased, at least partially, the potential of the SF-25. However, performing well on Sunday is not enough to aim for victory or consistently reach the podium. Leclerc knows this and, not surprisingly, emphasized that important updates will be needed to address the current main issue for Ferrari: qualifying.
“What we are missing now is qualifying performance. It comes a bit from the lack of aerodynamic downforce compared to McLaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes,” Charles stated after the Jeddah race. “Our strong point, however, is tire degradation. We saw during the race that it was very good, but in qualifying we can’t do better, and that’s where we lose every weekend.”
“However, there are many things that I have to be happy about. For several weekends now, I’ve been understanding something that unlocked performance, and it will unlock even more performance for me. It’s been a long time since I felt as comfortable in the car as I do now, but we need to find more performance in general.”
Currently, it seems difficult to imagine a Ferrari closing the performance gap to McLaren in just a few races. Leclerc, in fact, believes that only in Barcelona will things change. During the Spanish Grand Prix weekend, checks on wing flex will be stricter, and that’s where Ferrari hopes—at least according to Leclerc’s words—to reduce the gap to the MCL39, due to the disadvantage the new regulations should bring to the papaya cars.
“Winning is the only thing that matters to me. We can catch up with McLaren with the updates that will come. There will also be an important race in Spain when the front wing will change due to the regulations. We’ll see how the performance compares then. Before that weekend, it will be difficult to close the gap to McLaren.”
Returning to Ferrari, Charles didn’t hide his satisfaction with both his own performance—he was happy with his qualifying pace and how he managed the race—and the team’s performance. The mechanics at Maranello have had an excellent season in terms of pit stops. Yesterday, they managed to perform a tire change on Charles Leclerc’s SF-25 (from Medium to Hard) in just 2 seconds. A great result that helped Charles rejoin Russell and make the attack in a rather short time. The overtake resulted in a podium, his first of the season.
“I’m happy with my performance and the team’s performance. Because the team did everything perfectly. The strategy was perfect, the pit stop was perfect as always. The guys in the pit stop are doing an extraordinary job. There’s a lot of talk about pit stops when there are mistakes, but not much when everything goes well, and they are doing a great job.”
