A challenging first part of the season
Ferrari’s president, John Elkann, was present at the circuit on the Friday of the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend and made no effort to downplay the serious difficulties faced by Scuderia Ferrari throughout the first 14 rounds of the 2025 FIA Formula One World Championship.
Despite being second in the constructors’ standings, the Ferrari team is trailing championship leaders McLaren by a staggering 299 points. The Maranello-based squad currently holds only a narrow 24-point advantage over third-placed Mercedes. What makes the situation even more frustrating for Ferrari fans is the team’s limited success so far: not a single race victory and only one pole position, secured by Charles Leclerc during qualifying at the Hungaroring in Budapest.
Fred Vasseur speaks about his drivers
In a recent interview with Spanish broadcaster DAZN, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur took a moment to praise Charles Leclerc, who has emerged as a steady and reliable force for the Italian team during a turbulent campaign.
“In a season like this,” said Fred Vasseur, “when expectations are sky-high and then you find yourself going through a very rough patch, it’s extremely easy for someone to give up. But Charles Leclerc never did that. He always continued to give his maximum effort. He has remained totally committed, supporting the entire team and building a strong working relationship with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.”
The French manager then addressed the situation of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who joined Ferrari in 2025 after a legendary career with the Mercedes team. Vasseur was candid in his assessment of how things unfolded for the British driver: “We underestimated the challenge Lewis had to face at the beginning of the season. After all, he came from spending more than 20 years within the Mercedes environment, which shaped his professional life and habits. Changing all of that overnight is far from simple.”
Fred Vasseur admitted that both he and Hamilton had not fully appreciated the complexity of such a transition. “Both Lewis and I underestimated what that change would truly mean—from the culture to the people, from working methodologies to daily interactions. It was a deeper shift than we anticipated.”
A determined mindset for the second half of 2025
Although McLaren have so far dominated the 2025 Formula 1 season, claiming 11 wins out of the 14 races held to date, Frederic Vasseur remains determined to steer Ferrari to a stronger finish during the remainder of the year.
“I still want to win some Grands Prix before this season ends,” Fred Vasseur emphasized. “We must extract the absolute maximum from what we currently have. That’s our goal moving forward.”
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