Has Ferrari finally uncovered McLaren’s secret? Charles Leclerc speaks on a dramatic 2025 F1 season. Charles Leclerc discusses Ferrari’s challenging 2025 season.

Ferrari is trying to understand the secrets behind McLaren’s dominance, and Charles Leclerc reveals whether Maranello’s engineers have discovered anything; here’s what he had to say.

The Scuderia can only be disappointed with its results in 2025, a season that will ultimately be considered a failure. Ferrari has been unable to keep pace with McLaren, which is practically dominating the championship thanks to ‘secret solutions’ that almost no one has been able to replicate. Charles Leclerc provides insight on whether the engineers have figured out what is behind this advantage.

This season, Ferrari has not secured a single win. This is particularly concerning given that the team’s ambition was to compete for both world championships. The SF-25, the first car of the Fred Vasseur era, has underperformed compared to expectations. More importantly, Ferrari has not found the solutions needed to fix a flawed project, raising serious concerns ahead of the next season.

Has Ferrari discovered McLaren’s magic solution?

“Honestly, if I knew exactly where we were lacking, the work would have been easy. It’s not that simple, but what I can say is that Mercedes, Red Bull, and we ourselves have made roughly the same progress from last year to this year, but there is one team that has found something special, and that is McLaren. Now it’s up to us to understand what they did that is so special to close this gap. I think Red Bull has probably found part of the solution—we’ve seen that in recent races. Mercedes and we haven’t found it yet, and we are working on it. We know the areas; how to reach them is another story, and there’s a lot of work to do to understand and find the solutions. McLaren has taken a step that no one else has.” – the Monegasque driver pointed out.

From Charles Leclerc’s words, it is clear that Ferrari has not specifically uncovered McLaren’s secret. This has also been visible on track, as the team has not been able to close a gap that remains significant by the end of the season. At this stage, investigating the ‘papaya’ secret is no longer useful, as almost everything will change next year. Even if McLaren’s solution from Woking continues to provide an advantage next season, it will depend on the regulations. For Ferrari, the focus is already on 2026, a year in which mistakes will no longer be an option.