30/05/2025 09:00
Charles Leclerc has rejected claims that Ferrari were
"over-confident" at the start of the 2025 F1 season, believing much
of the expectation came from Lewis Hamilton's arrival. Hamilton
moved to Maranello for 2025 after 12 seasons at Mercedes, and the
Scuderia was widely expected to mount a championship challenge,
given it had finished just 14 points behind McLaren in the 2024
constructors' championship. However, heading into the Spanish GP
weekend, which is round nine of the season, Ferrari is 177 points
behind McLaren in the standings, compared to leading the Woking
team by 68 points at the same stage in 2024. Had Ferrari not
suffered a double disqualification at this season's Chinese Grand
Prix, it would actually be second in the constructors' on 160
points, as the team has struggled to extract the maximum
performance from the SF-25, with Hamilton struggling in particular.
Coming off the back of a pleasantly surprising strong performance
in Monaco, where he finished in second place for the team's best
result of the season, Leclerc denied the idea that Ferrari had been
'over-confident' coming into the season, instead pointing towards
the 'hype' around Hamilton's bombshell move from Mercedes. "I don't
think we were over-confident, I think there was a lot of hype
around the team at the beginning of the season," Leclerc told
media, including RacingNews365. "But it was not really that we
could control it, mostly because Lewis joining the team was a big
thing for the F1 paddock, so there was a lot of talk about Ferrari,
and lots of hopes as well. "Maybe we will be at the level which we
are not at the moment, and obviously the hopes were also within the
team that we had gone a good job and wanted to be fighting for the
championship - or at least to start the year where we ended up last
year, but that didn't happen. "But I don't think we were overly
optimistic, we were just focusing our ourselves and as a matter of
fact, we have not been good enough for this first part of the
season. "But this year is this year, and next year is so different
that I think we won't be running into the same issues. I'll be very
surprised if that is the case because the car should be in such a
different place next year. "So if we don't resolve it this year,
that doesn't mean we won't be starting on the right path next
year." "We are still fully focused on this season, it is extremely
important to understand and to fix it as soon as possible."
