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After climbing onto the podium in Saudi Arabia, Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari's qualifying struggles are limiting their true potential this season.
Leclerc secured his first podium of the 2025 season by finishing third behind Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen. However, despite the strong race result, the Monegasque driver expressed concerns about Ferrari’s inability to maximize its single-lap pace.
Ferrari’s True Potential Still Untapped
Across the first five races of the 2025 Formula 1 season, Ferrari’s performance has been something of a mystery. A significant change in the SF-25’s suspension setup — shifting from pull-rod to push-rod — has left the team still working to fully unlock the car's capabilities.
Qualifying Woes Costing Ferrari on Race Day
While Ferrari showed stronger race pace compared to Mercedes in Saudi Arabia, Leclerc found himself needing to recover ground after qualifying behind George Russell. Speaking after the race, Leclerc pointed to qualifying performance as a major weakness.
"I think we are close on the race pace. I think free air dictates a little bit who is going to win the race," Leclerc explained. "That’s always been the case. Maybe this year a little bit more than other years. And obviously when that is the case, qualifying is more important."
Despite that, Leclerc revealed that Ferrari’s qualifying problems have persisted for two seasons without a clear, consistent cause.
"But unfortunately, for two years, we are just struggling in qualifying to put everything together. This weekend the problem is it’s not always the same issue," he said.
"This time it was four-tenths in the first three corners. For the rest of the lap, we were fast. And now today in the race, actually, the first sector was probably the best sector we had. So we’ve got to look at that."
Acknowledging that mistakes are being made internally, Leclerc issued a clear call for Ferrari to address the issues urgently.
"Obviously, there are answers in what we are doing, and we are doing something wrong, clearly. We’ve got to find it," he said. "We cannot lose too many races before finding it because we’re already 50 points down in the Drivers’ Championship. We’re not looking at it too much, but 50 points is a big number. I don’t want to be losing more points than that in the next few races."
Leclerc Pushes for Qualifying-Focused Development
As Ferrari grows more comfortable with the SF-25, Leclerc emphasized that the car's behavior in qualifying feels disconnected from its stronger performances during races.
"There wasn’t anything more in the car," he said regarding his third-place finish in Saudi Arabia. "I think we need to focus on qualifying because it’s been a very long time I haven’t been as happy with the car balance."
Leclerc added that, despite feeling at ease with the SF-25, the car's outright potential over a single lap is simply not enough at the moment.
"I feel very at ease with the car in a way that I know I can extract the maximum out of the car more often than not, but unfortunately, the car potential is just not good enough to fight for better in qualifying."
On race day, however, Ferrari’s performance — especially in clean air — exceeded expectations.
"In the race, the good car balance had results. We were all surprised by our pace in free air on the first stint. That was really good," Leclerc noted. "Everything else was perfectly executed. Strategy was great. Pit stops have been great the whole season and also the whole of last year as well. There wasn’t much more we could have done."
Addressing track familiarity, Leclerc dismissed any notion that it impacts performance.
"In terms of track familiarity, I don’t think it has any impact on performance at the moment. We just need a better car. If we start further up, we’ll have our chances," he said. "If not, we’re all too close in the race to make a difference. We really need to focus and put everything together in qualifying."
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