Despite a fourth-place finish at the 2025 F1 Japanese GP, Charles Leclerc described the race as “annoying”. While speaking to the media after the race, he explained that he had not been able to match the pace of the McLaren or Red Bull’s Max Verstappen as his SF-25 had lacked performance.
“It was a bit of an annoying race. On my own, I was completely on my own. The guys in front were too quick.”
“In the first stint, I thought maybe there was something to do, but then they started to push more and they were just faster. It’s disappointing because when you put everything together, like we’ve done this weekend, I think the balance was in the right place. There’s just not enough performance in the car.”
Having realised the deficits of the SF-25, especially against the MCL39, Leclerc believes that Ferrari will need to focus on maximising their points and aim to improve their car for later races.
“So for now, we’ve just got to maximise the points, which is what we have done, and I hope that later on in the season, we can fight for better.”
Ferrari “weren’t particularly good in the first sector”
When asked where he believed McLaren had had an advantage over Ferrari, Leclerc replied, “A bit everywhere.”
However, he highlighted the first sector as a particularly challenging part of the track, thought he admitted that the high speeds at which he had been driving could have limited his perception of his performance.
“Maybe, if anything, the first sector was a little bit weaker but that’s only by eye, which can be a little bit confusing sometimes in the car because with the speed, you have this yo-yo effect as well that is difficult to take everything out of it because they were still quite far, like two seconds ahead.”
“But my feeling was that we weren’t particularly good in the first sector.”
Leclerc “learned plenty” about the SF-25 over F1 Japanese GP weekend
Though disappointed to finish fourth, Leclerc did draw some positives from the 2025 F1 Japanese GP weekend. The Ferrari driver explained that in addition to maximising their result, the team had learned quite a lot from the sessions.
“Yes, I think I learned plenty about the car this weekend, so that is the positive of the weekend really.”
“As much as we are disappointed with the fourth place, we should be happy of us maximising the result and we should be happy about all the lessons learned this weekend.”
This, he emphasised, had been a priority for him and his team, as he had gone in “quite extreme directions” in his approach to the race.
“As I said, Friday I think was a really, really good day for that. I really went in quite extreme directions in an idea that I’ve had since two or three weeks and I wanted to try it and it worked out, so I was pretty happy with that.”
When asked if he viewed beating Mercedes’ George Russell and Kimi Antonelli as another positive, Leclerc replied, “Yes.”
Despite this, Leclerc admitted that the accomplishment did not overly enthuse him, as beating Mercedes had not been his target for the weekend.
“But again, it doesn’t really make me happy, that’s really not the target, but at least, as I said, we’ve maximised the result.”
Leclerc not expecting better pace in Bahrain
While pleased to have maximised his results from the F1 Japanese GP, Leclerc does note expect too much more from his SF-25 at the upcoming Bahrain GP. He explained that the pace that Ferrari had shown around the Suzuka Circuit was representative of their overall pace and performance.
“This is the pace. I think this is the pace. Honestly, what we’ve shown this weekend, there’s not much more in the car, so I think that’s where we are.”
“No problem” between Leclerc and race engineer despite on-radio tension
Leclerc also addressed concerns over potential communication issues with his race engineer, Bryan Bozzi. During the race, Leclerc voiced his frustration over the quality of feedback and instruction provided by Bozzi. One notable incident occured during the latter half of the race. In a radio message, Bozzi suggested that Leclerc try “engine braking plus 1,” to which Leclerc replied, “Yes, you’ve already told me. I don’t do it for a reason.”
While many fans and commentators have criticised Ferrari’s in-race radio messages to their drivers, Leclerc denied there being any problem within the team. While he acknowledged the dispute between himself and Bozzi, he stated that he expected such situations to occur throughout the season.
“Yes, but actually, I think it would be like that all season. I always tell him, please repeat it. Then at one point I just get annoyed because sometimes you just don’t hear the first time, but sometimes you do hear the first time and by the third time you just want him to stop speaking about it.”
“But yes, again, there’s no problem,” he emphasised.
Leclerc on automatic DRS system: “I don’t mind either way”
After Jack Doohan’s heavy crash into the barriers during Free Practice 2 (FP2), the use of DRS has been a topic of conversation in F1. With Doohan’s crash attributed to him not manually deactivating his A525’s DRS into the first corner at the Suzuka Circuit, allegedly because he had not been required to do so in the simulator, some have suggested the implementation of automatic system to prevent drivers from making such errors in the future. When asked about this, however, Leclerc, now in his seventh year of F1, was of two minds.
While the Ferrari driver believes that an automatic system could be beneficial, allowing drivers to use DRS more at circuits like Silverstone, he stated that he believed that the use of DRS should be up to the drivers.
“I feel like if we have a system like this, I think we can maybe use it and have more DRS. Like before Turn 1 in Silverstone, I think it’s a good example, and here before [Turn 1] there’s a huge straight, and it’s a bit of a shame that we don’t use this kind of straights to do it.”
“But I also feel like it can be up to us. Like Turn 1 in Silverstone when we had it, I thought it was quite cool because you had to be very brave in Turn 1 to keep the DRS, and there was something to gain out of it.”
“But yeah, I don’t mind either way,” he summarised.
