{"id":31527,"date":"2025-03-16T07:51:39","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T11:51:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=31527"},"modified":"2025-03-16T07:57:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T11:57:17","slug":"ferrari-have-no-answers-to-unbelievable-mclaren-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/16\/ferrari-have-no-answers-to-unbelievable-mclaren-pace\/","title":{"rendered":"Ferrari have no answers to &#8220;unbelievable&#8221; McLaren pace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Charles Leclerc admits that <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/15\/ferrari-gamble-with-wet-set-up-for-australian-gp\/\" target=\"_self\">Ferrari<\/a> has not meet their expectations to start 2025. The SF-25 is a few steps behind the MCL39, <strong>suffering deficits in peak performance, consistency and tyre management<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Ferrari only brought home 5 points in Melbourne, putting them a lowly 6th in the standings.<\/p>\n<p>Although the Scuderia are obviously better than 6th in the constructors, <strong>their poor strategy at Albert Park<\/strong> was not the only alarming development from this weekend.<\/p>\n<h4>Ferrari concerns persist, improvement necessary<\/h4>\n<p>Prior to this weekend&#8217;s action, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/14\/mclaren-favourites-after-australia-race-simulations\/\" target=\"_self\">McLaren were the favourites<\/a> to set the standard in 2025,<\/p>\n<p>The Woking-based operation lived up to these expectations, with Norris claiming victory in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>A costly spin prevented Piastri from joining him on the podium, but <strong>the MCL39 was still comfortably the fastest car<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The McLaren duo created a 20 second gap over <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/14\/max-verstappen-does-not-expect-red-bull-to-fight-for-wins\/\" target=\"_self\">Verstappen<\/a> in P3 by lap 30, with only a Safety Car bringing the field together.<\/p>\n<p>Further down the field, Ferrari&#8217;s showing disappointed in almost every aspect.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"FvarsTJ7THVQKbNB-M-trg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2205334545\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'FvarsTJ7THVQKbNB-M-trg',sig:'7DHMlEZCiC1bok3Zkp5-x1dBxun894EHXD-mZ2D6-WU=',w:'594px',h:'383px',items:'2205334545',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Russell in the Mercedes was consistently faster than Leclerc, whilst Lewis Hamilton spent most of his race behind <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/16\/carlos-sainz-became-alex-albons-strategist-in-australia-vowles\/\" target=\"_self\">Alex Albon<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Scuderia&#8217;s poor strategy call, which put them at the bottom end of the points, was obviously costly.<\/p>\n<p>However, the fact remains that <strong>McLaren, Mercedes (including rookie Kimi Antonelli) and Max Verstappen<\/strong> were faster in dry and wet conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Not only did Ferrari struggle to optimise their package in qualifying, but the SF-25&#8217;s race degradation is weaker than its rivals.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst McLaren, Mercedes and even Red Bull have <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/02\/24\/george-russell-mercedes-w16-should-be-a-clear-step-forward\/\" target=\"_self\">a clear development path<\/a> &#8211; things are less certain for Ferrari.<\/p>\n<h4>Leclerc reflects on Australian GP<\/h4>\n<p>Speaking to the media post-race, Charles Leclerc spoke candidly about the situation.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It&#8217;s been a tricky day, overall. But we&#8217;ll look into it, it&#8217;s only the first race of the season.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Yeah, <strong>it&#8217;s not the first race of the season we hoped for<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;But moving forward we need to remotivate ourselves for Shanghai and recover from what was a disappointing first weekend.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Speaking of Shanghai, next weekend&#8217;s Chinese GP represents <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/03\/10\/ferrari-have-quite-a-bit-of-work-to-be-ready-for-2025-leclerc\/\" target=\"_self\">another challenge for Ferrari.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Quite fundamentally, as a Sprint Race weekend, Ferrari will only have one practice session to get the SF-25 into a good operating window.<\/p>\n<p>In the context of the consistency shown by McLaren (alongside Mercedes and Verstappen, albeit to a lesser degree), <strong>the margin for error is very small at Fred Vasseur&#8217;s team<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"SixvnMH_TBdkwDMbd1YcJQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2205332834\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'SixvnMH_TBdkwDMbd1YcJQ',sig:'MSO2YAadFghcLNaIhcMi1v8N8PtacmdxqMPkXurwz2U=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2205332834',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>When asked if McLaren are ahead of Ferrari, Leclerc gave a direct response:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We are, we definitely are. Even if you look, <strong>the pace today of McLaren was unbelievable<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Even much more strong than yesterday, by example. We&#8217;ve got to look into it, but we are on the back foot.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It&#8217;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.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Vasseur optimistic, but question marks remain<\/h4>\n<p>When Ferrari&#8217;s development stagnated last season in Spain, Fred Vasseur insisted that corrections were incoming.<\/p>\n<p>The Maranello team principal insisted that his engineers understood the problems and had solutions ready.<\/p>\n<p>At this stage in 2025, however, <strong>it is unclear whether Ferrari know the path forward<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"aZhpzB88QqhrC-F6_Plq3w\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2205332361\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'aZhpzB88QqhrC-F6_Plq3w',sig:'bEz8R03cvXlU2t2ZSvonY-R1xnf5ZfewIERal9moeks=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'2205332361',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Some of the decisions taken by the Scuderia over the winter, including their front suspension, are yet to deliver the desired impact.<\/p>\n<p>Still, Fred Vasseur insists the pace is there &#8211; but Ferrari must ensure they extract it:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;As for positives from the weekend, we had strong pace on Friday in both qualifying and race trim.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;<strong>Matching Mercedes and Red Bull, just a bit behind McLaren<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It\u2019s also good that in a few days we will be back on track, which means that very soon we <strong>will be able to evaluate our potential once again<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;It\u2019s a very long season, and we just have to continue to work hard.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":31491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[445,2452,2504,2481],"class_list":["post-31527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-scuderia","tag-sf-25"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31527"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31552,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31527\/revisions\/31552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}