Ferrari finished outside the top five in Las Vegas: Charles Leclerc was sixth and Lewis Hamilton ended up tenth, but team principal Frederic Vasseur explained that it was not a failure of the car.
The Las Vegas Grand Prix was supposed to be the most favourable race of the final triple-header for Fred Vasseur’s Ferrari team. Instead, yet another disappointment arrived. Charles Leclerc closed in sixth place, while Lewis Hamilton finished tenth after a Sunday that was complicated right from the start.
The weekend had already begun poorly with difficult qualifying sessions. Hamilton started twentieth after being eliminated in Q1, and Charles Leclerc lined up ninth. In the race, Ferrari confirmed the limits already seen in race pace. Charles Leclerc was stuck in the final laps behind Oscar Piastri and Kimi Antonelli, without having enough of a margin to overtake them. Lewis Hamilton lost a lot of time behind Esteban Ocon’s Haas, a situation that compromised his recovery.
Despite the result, team principal Frederic Vasseur offered a less pessimistic interpretation. Speaking to Sky Sport F1, he said: «The message to the fans is that there are still two races to go».
Vasseur believes Ferrari can win in Qatar or Abu Dhabi
According to Fred Vasseur, the pace of the SF-25 was not the main problem. «I think it’s difficult to say when you finish sixth, but overall the issue wasn’t the pace, it was not putting everything together in qualifying».
The Frenchman believes that Leclerc was faster than Kimi Antonelli and Oscar Piastri but could not use his pace due to the lack of clean air. «He was probably faster, but he got stuck behind them. Now we need to avoid making the same mistake in Qatar and Abu Dhabi to try to win a race between now and the end of the season».
Leclerc’s pit stop strategy also came under scrutiny. The Monegasque came in three laps after Oscar Piastri. Fred Vasseur defended the decision. «It’s not that simple, because if we had stopped one lap earlier, we would have come out behind Sainz. The strategy was to be more aggressive and pit before Oscar Piastri, but it’s always easy to talk after the race».
Hamilton had a similar race. According to Vasseur, the British driver had good pace after starting from the back, but tyre management was heavily affected by traffic. «We were all in the dark with the tyres. We were very surprised by Kimi, who managed to do 48 laps on the hards while other cars struggled».
Fred Vasseur explained that the decisive factor for Antonelli was the clean air. «He almost always had clean air. He only had to overtake Ocon. That makes a huge difference, because when you’re not in dirty air you can manage the tyres much better».
Despite another winless weekend and a victory drought that now stretches back over a full year, Frederic Vasseur remains genuinely convinced the SF-25 has the raw speed to take a chequered flag in one of the final two rounds – a result that would mean everything to a team that has let so many opportunities slip in 2025.
Two races left. For Ferrari and its fans, hope is still alive.
