Ferrari still without a podium, but signs of progress are clear | 2025 F1 Bahrain GP. Ferrari improves in Bahrain but falls short of the podium again.

There are some certainties and some unanswered questions. Ferrari leaves the Sakhir weekend with the best haul of the round after the untouchable McLaren. The fourth place achieved by Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton’s comeback fifth allow the Scuderia to collect valuable points in a still lacking Constructors’ ranking.

Then there’s the ‘podium’ issue, which is starting to become a problem, as the team still hasn’t scored a top-three finish since the beginning of the season. On this front, there is a key question: how much did the appearance of the safety car on lap thirty-two cost Ferrari?

Ferrari (the only top team to do so) chose to start the race on medium tyres. The plan was to keep a wider window during the first stint to assess strategy, a choice confirmed after the first stop when both Leclerc and Hamilton fitted another set of mediums. The second stop was planned for around lap forty, just over fifteen laps from the chequered flag, but the safety car forced all the cars into the pits on lap thirty-two.

“Without the safety car we could have chosen between soft and hard,” Fred Vasseur explained, “but having to pit with twenty-five laps to go, the soft was no longer an option.”

Ferrari opted for the safer route, going with the hards — the least performing compound but the one that guaranteed reaching the finish line without surprises. “The safety car ruined our plans and maybe that’s where we lost the best opportunities to secure a podium,” added Fred Vasseur.

Mercedes, however, played their wild card with Russell, going for the softs — a choice that paid off in the end. But it’s important to take into account the moment the Scuderia is going through, especially after the double zero from the disqualifications in Shanghai. The imperative now is to make the most of every opportunity. “I don’t think the soft was an option for us,” admitted Leclerc after the race, “and I don’t think it would have changed much anyway.”

Things might have turned out differently if Ferrari’s strategists had gone along with Leclerc’s idea of a one-stop race. “At one point it seemed like the right choice to me,” Charles explained, “but we did the right thing, especially considering the safety car came out afterwards.” With a stop under the safety car, which would have then been used by direct rivals, Leclerc would have ended up much further down the final standings.

The 57 laps in Sakhir validated the technical updates brought to Bahrain. “McLaren is still a step ahead, but we fought with them in the second stint and we managed to battle with both the Mercedes and the Red Bulls,” was Fred Vasseur’s analysis.

Undoubtedly, Ferrari in Sakhir showed better potential than Red Bull, while in the direct fight with Russell’s Mercedes, something was still missing. The race, however, restored morale to Hamilton, who had seemed very downcast and self-critical after qualifying.

“Today we see that very small margins make a big difference,” Fred Vasseur explained. “It wasn’t like that three or four years ago when a five-tenths loss cost you a position or a row. Today with that gap, you drop six or seven places. I appreciated the reaction Lewis had yesterday, I did my best to motivate him a bit and today he was in great shape. We’ll restart from there ahead of next week. It’s still early regarding Lewis’s adaptation to the team and the car — it seems he’s struggling a bit more than Charles with rear-end stability and high-speed sections, but we’ll work to meet him halfway, and he’ll do the same for us.”