The Ferrari garage in Barcelona, at the conclusion of the seventh Grand Prix of the season, told two completely different stories.
On one side of the garage, there were celebrations for Lewis Hamilton’s resurgence. The seven-time world champion returned to victory with a flawless performance, ending Ferrari’s winless streak that stretched back to the 2024 Mexican Grand Prix, the last race won by a Ferrari driver, Carlos Sainz.
On the other side sat a dejected Charles Leclerc, who may have experienced one of the lowest moments of his Ferrari career.
For some time now, the driver once known as “The Predestined One” has appeared to be a shadow of the racer whose combination of talent, passion and determination inspired Ferrari fans around the world. Instead, Charles Leclerc seems trapped in a difficult period that has deepened just as Lewis Hamilton has elevated his performances to a new level, demonstrating not only speed but also leadership.
Between mistakes and technical problems, the Spanish Grand Prix weekend was a complete failure for Charles Leclerc in both qualifying and the race.
Everything began on Saturday, specifically at Turn 4. Charles Leclerc explained that he had been “trying something different” in pursuit of a pole position that ultimately proved achievable, considering Lewis Hamilton finished qualifying just a few hundredths of a second behind George Russell. The alternative line and different cornering approach he attempted proved costly. His Ferrari drifted onto the dirty part of the track, triggering a violent snap of oversteer that sent him head-on into the barriers.
Starting only tenth on the grid, Sunday became what could only be described as a hydraulic nightmare: “I had no throttle and no brakes,” Charles Leclerc admitted with remarkable honesty, explaining that the failure also deprived him of power steering and even the ability to change gears.
Retirement became inevitable just a few kilometres from the finish while Lewis Hamilton was cruising to victory, making the contrast inside the Ferrari garage almost impossible to ignore. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the weekend was Charles Leclerc’s state of mind.
The Monegasque driver did not look for excuses. Instead, he faced the media with a level of vulnerability rarely seen in Formula 1: “I feel enormous shame for not being able to put everything together during such a positive weekend for the team,” he admitted with brutal honesty.
Faced with another disappointing result, his self-criticism was uncompromising: “There are no excuses, it’s entirely my fault.”
Charles Leclerc appeared almost overwhelmed by the sense of responsibility he feels towards both Ferrari and its supporters. That feeling was already evident on Saturday when he confessed: “To make up for that mistake, I would have to win the race, and maybe even that wouldn’t be enough.”
The hierarchy has been reversed
Barcelona witnessed a complete reversal of Ferrari’s internal hierarchy.
While Lewis Hamilton delivered a near-perfect weekend, maximising the potential of Ferrari’s latest upgrade package and managing the tyres brilliantly in extreme conditions, Charles Leclerc experienced a race weekend in which virtually nothing went right. The disappointment followed closely on the heels of his difficult home event in Monaco just eight days earlier, adding another emotional blow to an already challenging period.
As a result, Charles Leclerc has dropped to fourth place in the Drivers’ Championship with 75 points, compared to Lewis Hamilton’s 115, which now places the British driver second in the standings.
Even Ferrari’s switch to Carbon Industrie brake discs — the configuration preferred by Lewis Hamilton and adopted by Charles Leclerc in an effort to regain confidence — failed to prevent Saturday’s accident. One statistic highlights the severity of his current slump. In the past five years, Charles Leclerc had never suffered two consecutive retirements.
That fact makes the timing particularly unfortunate. Just before the Monaco Grand Prix, Ferrari celebrated the renewal of Charles Leclerc’s contract, reaffirming its commitment to building the future around him. At the moment, however, the driver Ferrari sees as a cornerstone of its future is being comprehensively outperformed by Lewis Hamilton, who at 41 years old has once again been delivering masterclasses behind the wheel.
And not only to Charles Leclerc.
Frederic Vasseur’s defence
Despite the setbacks, Ferrari continues to place its faith in Charles Leclerc, who has repeatedly demonstrated an ability to recover from difficult periods throughout his career. Team principal Frederic Vasseur downplayed Saturday’s accident, describing it as the consequence of excessive eagerness to secure pole position at a circuit where Ferrari was finally competitive.
The Frenchman, who strongly supported Charles Leclerc’s contract extension, offered words of encouragement after the weekend: “I think he is growing together with the car and together with the team. In the race it was a reliability issue. The positive thing is that he had very good pace. He had confidence and he needs to start again from that,” said Frederic Vasseur.
For Charles Leclerc, that may be the most important takeaway from Barcelona. Amid the mistakes, disappointment and bad luck, there were still signs that the speed remains there. The challenge now is turning that speed back into results.
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