Charles Leclerc admits that Ferrari has not meet their expectations to start 2025. The SF-25 is a few steps behind the MCL39, suffering deficits in peak performance, consistency and tyre management.
Ferrari only brought home 5 points in Melbourne, putting them a lowly 6th in the standings.
Although the Scuderia are obviously better than 6th in the constructors, their poor strategy at Albert Park was not the only alarming development from this weekend.
Ferrari concerns persist, improvement necessary
Prior to this weekend’s action, McLaren were the favourites to set the standard in 2025,
The Woking-based operation lived up to these expectations, with Norris claiming victory in Australia.
A costly spin prevented Piastri from joining him on the podium, but the MCL39 was still comfortably the fastest car.
The McLaren duo created a 20 second gap over Verstappen in P3 by lap 30, with only a Safety Car bringing the field together.
Further down the field, Ferrari’s showing disappointed in almost every aspect.
Russell in the Mercedes was consistently faster than Leclerc, whilst Lewis Hamilton spent most of his race behind Alex Albon.
The Scuderia’s poor strategy call, which put them at the bottom end of the points, was obviously costly.
However, the fact remains that McLaren, Mercedes (including rookie Kimi Antonelli) and Max Verstappen were faster in dry and wet conditions.
Not only did Ferrari struggle to optimise their package in qualifying, but the SF-25’s race degradation is weaker than its rivals.
Whilst McLaren, Mercedes and even Red Bull have a clear development path – things are less certain for Ferrari.
Leclerc reflects on Australian GP
Speaking to the media post-race, Charles Leclerc spoke candidly about the situation.
“It’s been a tricky day, overall. But we’ll look into it, it’s only the first race of the season.
“Yeah, it’s not the first race of the season we hoped for.
“But moving forward we need to remotivate ourselves for Shanghai and recover from what was a disappointing first weekend.”
Speaking of Shanghai, next weekend’s Chinese GP represents another challenge for Ferrari.
Quite fundamentally, as a Sprint Race weekend, Ferrari will only have one practice session to get the SF-25 into a good operating window.
In the context of the consistency shown by McLaren (alongside Mercedes and Verstappen, albeit to a lesser degree), the margin for error is very small at Fred Vasseur’s team.
When asked if McLaren are ahead of Ferrari, Leclerc gave a direct response:
“We are, we definitely are. Even if you look, the pace today of McLaren was unbelievable.
“Even much more strong than yesterday, by example. We’ve got to look into it, but we are on the back foot.
“It’s only race 1 out of 24. There are many other races where we have to stay calm and keep working in the right direction.”
Vasseur optimistic, but question marks remain
When Ferrari’s development stagnated last season in Spain, Fred Vasseur insisted that corrections were incoming.
The Maranello team principal insisted that his engineers understood the problems and had solutions ready.
At this stage in 2025, however, it is unclear whether Ferrari know the path forward.
Some of the decisions taken by the Scuderia over the winter, including their front suspension, are yet to deliver the desired impact.
Still, Fred Vasseur insists the pace is there – but Ferrari must ensure they extract it:
“As for positives from the weekend, we had strong pace on Friday in both qualifying and race trim.
“Matching Mercedes and Red Bull, just a bit behind McLaren.
“It’s also good that in a few days we will be back on track, which means that very soon we will be able to evaluate our potential once again.
“It’s a very long season, and we just have to continue to work hard.”
