F1 Jeddah: where and how Charles Leclerc built Ferrari’s first podium of 2025 F1 season. Charles Leclerc secured Ferrari’s first podium of the F1 season in Jeddah.

Ferrari’s first podium of the 2025 Formula 1 season, secured by Charles Leclerc in Jeddah, took shape during the ten laps around the midpoint of the race. After a straightforward start in which he maintained the fourth position earned in qualifying, Charles followed closely behind Russell, never having a real opportunity to attack despite the three DRS zones on the Jeddah circuit. On lap 19, the Mercedes pitted with more than a two-second advantage over the Ferrari, and it was at this point that Leclerc’s race took a positive turn.

From the pit wall, Charles was instructed to stay out a few more laps (the original strategy called for a stop to switch to hard tyres around lap 20), and this is when Leclerc—and his SF-25—began to impress. In his first lap in clean air, Charles immediately lapped under one minute and thirty-four seconds, cutting three tenths off his previous best time, and lap after lap he progressively improved his times, reaching 1:33.368 on lap 28. When Frederic Vasseur was asked after the race to explain Leclerc’s surprising pace improvement, he replied that honestly, they did not have a clear idea.

After completing his pit stop on lap 29, Leclerc returned to the track with the same gap to Russell that he had before George’s stop; in other words, with 20-lap-old tyres, Charles managed to maintain the same pace as the Mercedes running on fresh hard tyres. After the stop, Leclerc began a very spectacular stint, but in this case the explanation was clear: he had a much fresher set of tyres than his direct rivals. The real standout performance came during the final ten laps of the previous stint.

Vasseur commented that the most difficult thing to explain was the difference between the qualifying pace and the race pace. He believed they were on the same pace as Max over the last 35 or 40 laps, but on Saturday they were four tenths behind, and that was what hurt them. He observed that in China, when starting in front, the race is different: you are in clean air, and in the first five or six laps you gain six or seven seconds on your rivals instead of starting six seconds behind. He went on to say that it would have been a completely different story for them if they had started in front. The potential was there, but they hadn’t put everything together in qualifying. He added that they should not point fingers at anyone, but simply do a better job by working as a team, all together. Although they were in a negative moment, he honestly believed there were several positive aspects to take from the weekend.

There was less positive to take from Hamilton’s weekend. Vasseur concluded by saying they would find the solution and the results, but honestly, he was not too worried. Looking at what Hamilton did in China or in the Bahrain race the previous week, the potential was clearly there. They just needed to fix the balance. They were struggling with the setup of his car because it negatively affected the tyres, but there was no doubt about the car’s potential. In China, Lewis had been on pole, led from lap one to lap eighteen, and won with a ten-second gap over Piastri and Verstappen. Vasseur acknowledged that Hamilton was now struggling, because when you finish seventh and your teammate is on the podium, there isn’t much more to say. They needed to react together, and that would be the way they would work going forward.