An unrivalled dominance
The Formula 1 summer break is traditionally the time to take stock of the first half of the World Championship, and for Scuderia Ferrari the mid-season review is far from fully positive. While the Maranello-based team currently sits second in the Constructors’ standings — exactly as it did in the 2024 season — the gap to the leaders is enormous. McLaren holds a commanding advantage of 299 points, making the fight for first place almost out of reach.
Adding to the frustration for the Italian squad, Ferrari has not won a single race since October 2024. This means that the Italian side is still staring at an empty win column in the current season — a statistic they are eager to change as quickly as possible.
However, achieving that goal will be anything but simple. McLaren’s 2025 campaign has turned into a relentless winning march, with the team taking 11 victories in the 14 Grands Prix contested so far. Their performances have been so overwhelming that Charles Leclerc, in a long interview with Autosprint, directly compared the current McLaren to Red Bull’s record-breaking 2023 car.
“The 2023 Red Bull and the 2025 McLaren, I would say, are at the same level,” Charles Leclerc observed. “They are two teams that are doing everything extremely well, without relying on just one area of strength. They are complete outfits, strong in every department, with very few weaknesses. The difference is that McLaren has two extremely talented drivers, whereas Red Bull’s focus was primarily on Max Verstappen. Both teams had the fastest car on the grid and made almost no mistakes. They are always there, always competitive, and both are completely destroying the competition.”
And what about the SF-25?
When asked to assess Ferrari’s 2025 challenger, the SF-25, Charles Leclerc summed it up as “consistent, but not enough” — a car that has required him to push its limits to the extreme in order to remain competitive. “We would need more performance to be able to win,” he admitted. “To extract the maximum from it, I have had to choose quite extreme set-ups. I am satisfied with what we have achieved so far with this car, because I think it would have been difficult to get more out of it than we have.”
Ferrari is now pinning its hopes on the latest round of updates introduced to the SF-25, with Charles Leclerc acknowledging that their effectiveness will be key. “How close we will be to McLaren will depend on the level of performance we are able to extract. Unfortunately, we have been consistently at the same distance from McLaren throughout the season, so we need to make a step forward,” he explained.
With a title challenge looking unrealistic, Charles Leclerc has set his sights on a more achievable objective for the remainder of the year. “I believe second place in the Constructors’ Championship is a realistic target for us to aim for,” the Monegasque concluded.
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