Having endured a tough start to his season, Charles Leclerc is hopeful that Ferrari will be able to turn its fortunes at this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, suggesting that there is more to come from the Scuderia in race conditions.
Having started the Chinese Grand Prix from P6 on the grid, Charles Leclerc gained a place at the start, overtaking reigning champion Max Verstappen into Turn 1. However, the Monegasque made contact with his new team-mate Lewis Hamilton in Turn 2, and as a result of the incident he picked up a serious damage to his front wing endplate.
Despite considering a front wing change during the pit stop, Ferrari and Leclerc elected to continue with the damaged part as a longer pit stop would have seen Leclerc fall down the order, and the sprint race saw drivers struggle to complete an overtaking move due to the overheating front tyres and turbulent wake.
In the end, the Monegasque displayed a strong pace, and finished fifth with his damaged front wing. However, the FIA noted after the race that his SF-25 was found underweight during the post-race technical investigation.
The Jo Bauer-led FIA technical group replaced Leclerc’s damaged front wing with a spare part which was 0.2kg heavier, albeit his SF-25 was still one kg under the minimum weight limit after 2.0 litres of fuel were removed from the car. In the end, Leclerc was disqualified from the Chinese Grand Prix.
Reflecting on the dismal outcome at the Chinese Grand Prix, Leclerc said that he is confident that Ferrari will learn from the mistakes and it won’t happen again at this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.
“I’m confident because whenever you make mistakes, you learn from them, especially when they cost that much. Everybody plays with the limit and tries to be as close as possible to it. But to have both cars underneath it was a big pain. We didn’t need that.
“It’s been a very difficult first part of the season. The first two races were difficult, the pace was not where we expected it to be, and to lose even more points than we already did with that, it hurts the team a lot.
“I’m confident we’ve learned from it. Whenever these kind of events happen we try to understand and analyse what went wrong and change a little bit the process. It was a multitude of things adding up, and the margin we took wasn’t big enough.”
🗣️ “We have a very strong car for the race, which can allow us to be competitive behind McLaren, who so far this season are doing what Red Bull did a year ago. Our aim is to prove the worth of our package as from this weekend in Japan.”
— Scuderia Ferrari HP (@ScuderiaFerrari) April 3, 2025
Asked about the broking front wing that seemingly did not influence his pace massively, the Monegasque claimed that the changes the Scuderia has made after the sprint race paid dividends.
“I can assure you it’s never a good thing to have a broken front wing, so it’s not something I want to target for the rest of the year. There were some interesting things we looked at to understand where the performance was coming from. I believe the performance was really strong in terms of race pace.
“I made some changes already on Saturday – it was strong, especially at the end of the stint considering I was in traffic. Then we made some changes and took a step forward for Sunday’s race.
“So I think the overall pace was very strong. I believe it would have been stronger with a full front wing, but by changing the tools and adapting the driving, it didn’t have as much influence as we thought. But it’s still faster to have a full front wing.”
Ferrari endured a tough start to the 2025 F1 season, with both Leclerc and his team-mate Lewis Hamilton having struggled for pace in the season opening Melbourne round. The British driver then went on to take pole position for the Shanghai F1 Sprint and secured a dominant victory in the 19-lap race.
However, both drivers lacked pace in the main race in Shanghai. Asked about the swing in performance, Leclerc refused to reveal the reasons for the pace fluctuation, albeit he hopes that Ferrari will be able to extract the most of the car in the coming races.
“I won’t go into very specific details. I think we’re starting to understand the car and have some ideas where we’re lacking. In Australia, it was well understood. In China, Lewis did an outstanding job on Friday – maybe some drivers didn’t put everything together in qualifying and he managed to do that and managed to outperform the car a bit.
“Then tyre degradation being a big thing. When you start in front, everything comes to you a bit more. But I think Lewis made a difference on Friday and Saturday, which in the second qualifying – everyone was more up to pace – we saw more of the real pace of the car. I think, very similar to last year, we have a good car in terms of race pace, but we couldn’t really show it until now.
“Whenever you start in the middle of the pack, degradation is worse, and you can’t really show your real pace. That’s what happened a bit on Sunday in China. So I think the pace is still as good as what we saw Saturday with Lewis. However, we can’t use it if we don’t have better qualifying pace. So if I take a step back that’s where we need to improve – qualifying. It was the case last year, and this year it seems even more so,” concluded Leclerc.
