18/10/2025 08:20
A dejected Charles Leclerc insisted Ferrari are "so far behind"
after qualifying in 10th for the sprint race at the United States
Grand Prix. The Monegasque suffered a difficult opening day of
track action at the Circuit of the Americas, which saw him miss
some of the only practice session due to a gearbox issue. Ferrari
quickly repaired Leclerc's car in time for sprint qualifying;
however, the 28-year-old struggled in his SF-25. He ended the
session a full second adrift of polesitter Max Verstappen, with him
painting a miserable picture for the Scuderia afterwards. Asked if
he knew where Ferrari were losing lap time, a dejected Leclerc
simply responded: "Everywhere. Honestly, my lap was clean in SQ3. I
don't regret much what I've done in my lap. "Maybe a little bit
more mileage [in practice] on the medium, you can fine tune the car
a little bit better. "There might be one-tenth in that, a
tenth-and-a-half, I don't know, but it's not enough. We are so far
behind now." Leclerc not expecting a miracle Leclerc qualified for
the sprint race behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton, although even the
seven-time world champion found himself nine-tenths behind
Verstappen in eighth. It was an alarming session for the
Maranello-based outfit, who were comfortably beaten by Stake F1's
Nico Hulkenberg. Hulkenberg was the top Ferrari-powered driver in
fourth, managing to go almost five-tenths quicker than both Leclerc
and Hamilton. Following sprint qualifying, Leclerc is not
expecting Ferrari to make strides towards the front across the
remainder of the event. "I'll be very surprised if we find
something that will make us such a jump," added Leclerc. "But I
hope I'm wrong. "But unfortunately for now, it just seems like it's
the potential of our car. "It's very surprising, the teams that are
very strong this weekend, apart from, obviously the McLaren and the
Red Bull, which is expected, but you've got Nico in front that has
done probably an amazing lap, and he's been consistently fast this
weekend. "So we just need to understand if they understood
something that we didn't but, but it was a very poor day."
