The eighteen points earned at the Suzuka circuit doubled the total Ferrari had collected in the previous two rounds of the 2025 Formula 1 season, in Melbourne and Shanghai. Charles Leclerc, in fourth, crossed the finish line ahead of the two Mercedes W16 cars, with a gap of 16 seconds to Max Verstappen after 53 laps. This was the slightly positive side of the weekend in the Japanese Grand Prix, but the overall result still fell far short of the Maranello team’s objectives. After the events in China, it was necessary to bring home a more solid result, but combining Charles Leclerc’s placement with Lewis Hamilton’s seventh position was certainly no reason for celebration.
The Monegasque driver described a two-sided reality: on one hand, the satisfaction of having completed a weekend where he was able to extract everything from the car; on the other, the awareness that even extracting everything was not enough to reach the podium. The question mark remained over where to look for the missing performance. According to Team Principal Frederic Vasseur, the race to bring upgrades is not a priority over gaining a deeper understanding of the car—a policy that paid off last year, provided the Maranello team identified the areas where the car was lacking. On this front, Charles Leclerc’s remarks seemed less convinced, and it appeared that, for him, what was seen at Suzuka is all the car can currently offer.
In his role, Charles Leclerc emerged from the Japanese round in a good light. His strong qualifying lap on Saturday served as a springboard that he made the most of to stay ahead of the Mercedes duo, a result that had not been guaranteed going into the Suzuka weekend. Ferrari chose to split strategies: the Monegasque driver started on medium tyres, while his Maranello teammate on hards, but the difference in performance was minimal, also due to a track that was surprisingly easy on tyres thanks to the new track surface.
Charles Leclerc said it had been a somewhat solitary race for him. He acknowledged that fourth place couldn’t be a satisfying result, but pointed to the positives of the weekend, such as the work done on Friday on setup changes and the lessons learned, which would be useful in upcoming races. The 27-year-old believed progress had been made, but stressed the importance of staying focused and continuing to work without rushing decisions, especially because the top teams still had a clear advantage in race pace. For now, he said, the team needed to concentrate on maximizing the points haul, something they managed to do on Sunday.
An optimization that Lewis Hamilton this time missed. Qualifying proved decisive for the weekend’s outcome, and the Briton, who started eighth, managed to gain only one position, overtaking Isack Hadjar. The seven-time Formula 1 world champion admitted it had been a tough race and said they didn’t have the pace to fight with the top three, which was something the team would work hard on for the next races. He added that, on his part, he had chosen a setup that was generally good, but didn’t provide the pace he would have needed on track.
In reality, Lewis Hamilton didn’t have the pace to fight even the other Mercedes, who finished fifth and sixth. On lap 32 (after the pit stop), he was seven-tenths behind Kimi Antonelli, and by the chequered flag the gap had grown to eleven seconds.
Frederic Vasseur commented at the end of the weekend that the result mirrored what had been seen in qualifying. With the car they had, they probably couldn’t have done more. The French manager acknowledged that they were struggling in some areas and needed to keep working to extract more performance from the car ahead of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. He noted that they knew there was room for improvement and needed to focus on the car’s balance and tyre management.
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The Ferrari team principal explained that they had followed exactly the same approach last year. They had been six tenths off the pace and managed to recover during the season, which meant they had to maintain the same mindset. The Frenchman pointed out that the gap and the current results didn’t matter—what matters is doing a better job the following week to improve both the car’s potential and their ability to extract that potential, including its operation and performance.
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