Charles Leclerc ended the Saudi Arabian GP with a podium finish, which came as a surprise for the Ferrari driver who managed a stellar first stint on medium tyres.
Starting in fourth, Charles Leclerc was pessimistic of the possible performance that could come from the unbalanced Ferrari that he had been dealing with all weekend. He was open about his difficulties of the 2025 car and saw a possible podium as a reach for the prancing horses.
However, during the race, it was a different story. Leclerc, who opted for medium tyres to start, found himself able to drag them out into an impressive 30 lap stint which left him with a significant tyre defict in the final stages of the race.
Leclerc was open with his thoughts on the performance. He told the media, “At least I feel like we’ve maximised absolutely everything we could have this weekend. There wasn’t anything more, I think, in the car. I think we need to focus on qualifying at the moment. It’s been a very long time I haven’t been as happy with the car balance.”
A first podium
It was the first podium of the season for the Maranello-based team in a grand prix. While Charles Leclerc was happy with that result there was no denying he wanted to be fighting for the win.
He said, “I feel very at ease with the car in a way that I know that I can extract the maximum out of the car more often than not. But unfortunately, the car potential is just not good enough to fight for better in qualifying. But in the race, I think the good car balance had results.”
The Ferrari driver admitted that he doesn’t think the SF-25 is far from the McLaren on race pace, but the instability in qualifying leaves them on the back foot in the race.
“I think we are close on the race pace. I think free air dictates a little bit who is going to win the race. That’s always been the case. For some reason, maybe this year a little bit more than other years. And obviously, when that is the case, qualifying is more important.”
“But unfortunately, for two years, we are just struggling in qualifying to put everything together. Qualifying this weekend, the problem is that it’s not always the same issue.”
Even just across the weekend the difficult areas shifted for Ferrari, making it harder to fix the constantly moving target.
Last stint worries
In the final stages of the race, Lando Norris was coming back at the Ferrari driver, with the gap falling to 1.3 seconds with just a few laps to go. Although Leclerc was feeling the pressure of the second McLaren behind him, he admitted he wasn’t worried about losing the podium spot.
“I knew that it was going to be tight and I didn’t know what to expect with traffic, especially at one point I had to avoid, I think, Bortoletto and I went in the marbles and I lost a lot of time.”
“And Lando nearly got into my DRS range, which will have been a bit trickier than to keep him behind. But then I think he got stuck around 1.2, 1.3 for the last two or three laps.”
Leclerc continued to tell the media that the car just needs to get better if they want to progress this season. “I think we just need a better car. That’s all we need. And at the moment where we’ll be starting further up, I think we’ll have our chances.”
“If that’s not the case, I think we are all too close in the race to make a difference once race day.So we really need to focus and try to put everything together in qualifying.”
