Leclerc admits "worse than expected" start to 2025 at Ferrari

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc admits dissapointing start to the 2025 World Championship season, despite going head to head with McLaren at the closing stage of the 2024 campaign.

credit: Scuderia Ferrari media centre

Leclerc revealed that Ferrari have had a very difficult start to their 2025 Championship campaign, with Lewis Hamilton's Sprint Race win in China being the only notable performance thus far. However, both drivers' were later disqualified from the Chinese GP itself due to infringements on both cars.

"These first races been worse than expected, and we really hope that we can be back up to the fight with the McLaren," Leclerc said during the 2025 Bahrain press conference. "So, I hope the warm weather will help us."

After a strong finish to the 2024 World Championship season, which saw Ferrari lose out on the Constructors' trophy to McLaren at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and finishing in second place, Leclerc highlighted that the expectations going into this season were high. Ultimately, reality overcame that expectation, as the SF-25 car has struggled to perform so far this season.

A P4 finish was the best Leclerc could hope for at Suzuka. credit: Scuderia Ferrari media centre

"I'm speaking more about the expectations that we finished last year, where we are in a good momentum with the team, that you've got a good car, then obviously the expectations of what you are trying to target at least as a team is to at least start from there and try and improve."

"So on that, we were a little bit dissapointed to see that we had gone a step back at the beginning of this year," Leclerc continued. "After this testing, as we said, it's very difficult to know where you are. I felt like we maybe kind of saw straight away that McLaren was very strong, but it was still to be confirmed."

"Now it's confirmed and I hope that we can turn that situation around. There's a lot of work in the background, obviously. I think that the last weekend has been more or less where we are as a team, where we stand as a team. "We've got a few new parts here, which I hope will help us close that gap a little bit," the Monegasque driver concluded.

Leclerc currently sits in sixth place in the 2025 Drivers' Championship standings with 20 points so far, with teammate Hamilton further back in eighth and 15 points respectively. The Maranello team will be hoping to have a competitive package during the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, and return to winning ways before the season can get away from them.