F1, Ferrari: why Charles Leclerc’s commanding podium in Saudi Arabia reveals deeper truths. Ferrari’s first podium of the season in Jeddah, led by a strategic and a commanding Charles Leclerc.

“We’ve taken a different direction that I like. If we continue down this path, I hope we’ll get our first podium.” On the eve of the fifth round of the 2025 Formula 1 season, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc did not hide a touch of optimism for a race that, on paper, should have suited the SF-25 single-seater better but could also have exposed certain limitations of the car.

Looking back, Ferrari leaves the 6.174-kilometre Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Saudi Arabia with two interlinked takeaways: the first podium of the season provided a morale boost to a Maranello team that needed and wanted to send a signal, while also highlighting that the road back to consistently being at the top is still long, and depends on the upcoming aerodynamic updates.

The qualifying session on Saturday showed a Ferrari as the fourth-best team, whose lack of aerodynamic load translates into a shortfall in performance when it comes time to exploit the car’s full potential. In the race, however, the Prancing Horse came to life, as already seen last week in Bahrain before the Safety Car, surprising even Ferrari itself.

At the end of the race, Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur explained that he did not have a clear explanation for how and why the SF-25 performed so well in the final phase of the first stint on medium tires, but he also stressed that the real anomaly lies in the performance gap between qualifying and the race, identifying single-lap pace as one of the areas to improve in order to start further up the grid.

Starting fourth behind George Russell had a significant impact on the pace Charles Leclerc maintained in the first part of the race, but in a sense, it was also the key that allowed for competitiveness in the final part of the stint. Without enough of a delta to overtake on track, Charles Leclerc wisely kept his distance in the first twenty laps, avoiding staying in the dirty air. This had two effects: the Monegasque driver had to adapt to George Russell’s pace, lapping on average about six tenths slower than the leading duo. Not surprisingly, in the 17 laps between the end of the Safety Car and the Briton’s pit stop, Charles Leclerc accumulated over 11 seconds of gap to Max Verstappen.

However, once George Russell pitted, giving him clean air to run in, Charles Leclerc unleashed his pace, lowering lap times with a progression that even surprised Ferrari, allowing them to extend the stint — a factor that turned out to be crucial in fending off Lando Norris’s comeback.

The interesting aspect is understanding where that clear pace improvement came from and how it should be interpreted within a broader race analysis. The most natural answer is that this time evolution came from pushing more in the corners, with the awareness that he could increase the pace without the risk of closing the gap and ending up again in dirty air, which would have compromised the tires.

The nearly six tenths average gap accumulated in the first twenty laps came from having maintained a significantly slower cornering pace, with much more cautious throttle management and, as a result, less stress on the tires — both from reduced sliding and from lower loads. This can also be seen when analyzing the telemetry data and comparing it with that of Max Verstappen, which shows not only what has already mentioned but also that the Ferrari SF-25 car was noticeably more effective on the straights, with peaks up to 10 kilometers per hour higher; a delta due both to aerodynamic choices and a different use of engine mapping.

Although top speeds are a strength of the car, it is essential to look at this data more broadly: gaining time on the straights means the time lost in corners was above average per lap, further reducing tire stress. This broader view helps explain Charles Leclerc’s progression during the first stint once he had clean air, displaying a clearly superior pace compared to George Russell up to that point, confirming that Ferrari still had performance margin.

Without the Mercedes W16 car ahead, Charles Leclerc’s pace on mediums would have been more “balanced” and consistent throughout the stint, but we would not have seen that rhythm leap that ultimately defined his performance — though it does not take away from how strong Charles Leclerc’s lap times were during that phase. Looking at the lap times, in fact, Charles Leclerc was almost able to match Lando Norris’s pace during that clean-air phase, which confirms how solid the Monegasque’s pace was, even if, as Pirelli confirmed, the performance gap between medium and hard was small. Moreover, Lando Norris had to push hard on the hards earlier on to make his comeback work.

Indeed, the unknown in the equation — or perhaps more accurately, the anomaly — was Mercedes, which collapsed due to difficulties managing temperatures and thermal degradation, even triggering blistering, a phenomenon rarely seen on a low-degradation track like Jeddah, where the main risk has always been graining. This is also shown by the internal comparison at Mercedes: Andrea Kimi Antonelli was indeed faster than his teammate in the final phase of the race, but lapped 7–8 tenths slower per lap than George Russell in the first part of the second stint. A trade-off that confirms how different stint management could shift values.

Those laps in clean air proved fundamental for Charles Leclerc, as they allowed him to extend the stint beyond initial forecasts, aligning with Lando Norris while also creating a nine-lap delta over the Max Verstappen – Oscar Piastri duo.

This first podium of the 2025 Formula 1 season is certainly not the dream result the Italian side was aiming for, but it is an encouraging first step — also useful to “unlock” a stat that was beginning to weigh. The SF-25 is an efficient car, but one that still suffers from a lack of downforce: a shortcoming that shows up particularly in the qualifying session, where Ferrari has shown the greatest difficulties, relying on a Charles Leclerc often driving at the limit.

Progress inevitably depends on adding “balanced” downforce, which should provide a performance jump both in qualifying and the race. But it is now clear that, to make the leap — not just in isolated cases, in a broader picture that can even apply to Red Bull — working only on setup is no longer enough, as the Monegasque is already extracting the maximum from it. Something more concrete is therefore needed.

— see video above —