Yesterday at 08:20
Charles Leclerc has highlighted how the "very extreme" way Ferrari
had to set up the SF-25 led to more errors from both him and Lewis
Hamilton earlier in the F1 season. The Maranello-based squad has
struggled with its 2025 car across the campaign, and a double
disqualification at the Chinese Grand Prix forced the Italian team
to run its floor higher than ideal. It has not only compromised
performance but also pushed Leclerc and Hamilton down certain
set-up avenues, something that has since been improved by
subsequent upgrades. Nonetheless, the former has been able to score
regular podium finishes, with five in the opening 14 rounds of the
year. After pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix, the
Monegasque driver looked poised for a first victory of the season,
but a mysterious issue with his SF-25 halted his early momentum,
consigning him to fourth. Prior to that, Leclerc stated he was
"very satisfied" with his form over the first part of the year. "In
terms of my own performance... I'm very happy with the way I
perform," he explained to media, including RacingNews365 . "The
best moment as a driver? No, because I want to win. So, as for my
own performance, I'm really happy. You always want to improve, and
obviously, like Silverstone, for example, was a very poor weekend
from my side. "Those weekends you want to have the least possible
in a season. Apart from that, I'm very satisfied. That is a good
thing." The eight-time grand prix winner did not secure his first
podium of the campaign until the fifth round, making his hit rate
over the past 10 weekends one in two. Leclerc credited that uptick
in form to being able to get the SF-25 into a more "reasonable
window" more consistently, with fewer errors also as a result. "I
also think the upgrades go in the right direction of making the
life of the drivers, Lewis and myself, a little bit easier because
at the beginning of the season, it was extremely difficult. "We had
to set up the car in very extreme ways, and that made us also do
more mistakes. "Now we are a bit more in a reasonable window, which
helps us to extract the maximum out of the car. It's good that we
see the result."
