{"id":33454,"date":"2025-05-05T07:23:57","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T11:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=33454"},"modified":"2025-05-05T07:23:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T11:23:57","slug":"leclerc-doubtful-ferrari-have-the-solutions-to-improve-sf-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/05\/05\/leclerc-doubtful-ferrari-have-the-solutions-to-improve-sf-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Leclerc doubtful Ferrari “have the solutions” to improve SF-25"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton<\/a> were forced to settle for 7th and 8th place respectively at the Miami GP.<\/p>\n

Ferrari’s failure to swap Hamilton and Leclerc quickly enough – and the team radio messages that followed – have created plenty of headlines post-race.<\/p>\n

Despite this, poor strategy was not the biggest issue that emerged for Ferrari last weekend.<\/p>\n

More than at any stage in 2025, Charles Leclerc is increasingly pessimistic about the SF-25<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Leclerc admits Ferrari have no clear solutions for SF-25<\/h2>\n

Since their catastrophic start to the 2023 campaign, Ferrari have spent most of the last two years making steady progress.<\/p>\n

At the end of last season, Vasseur’s team were seen as favourites to challenge McLaren for the title.<\/p>\n

Charles Leclerc echoed this sentiment in pre-season, admitting it would be “disappointing” if Ferrari didn’t claim at least one Championship in 2025.<\/p>\n

Aside from a few highlights, such as the China Sprint, the SF-25 has failed to deliver any significant strengths.<\/p>\n

In both qualifying and race, low and high-speed corners, the Italian outfit are lacking compared to the other front-runners.<\/p>\n

“It’s every corner, really. It’s not like we are particularly weak in one type of corner,”<\/em> Leclerc explained in Miami.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Even the notorious RB21<\/a>, thanks to recent updates, is becoming a more consistent car than the Maranello-produced machine.<\/p>\n

Leclerc and Hamilton finished almost 60 seconds behind Oscar Piastri<\/a> in Miami. This equates to losing almost one second per lap to the MCL39.<\/p>\n

For a driver who typically shows optimism and unwavering faith in Ferrari, Leclerc’s post-race comments are telling:<\/p>\n

“Yeah, unfortunately it confirms a bit what I was saying yesterday.<\/em><\/p>\n

“With a really good lap, with everything in the lap, the best we could do was P8.<\/em><\/p>\n

“And that’s more or less where we deserved to finish today.<\/em><\/p>\n

“It’s not good, we need to do better.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Arguably the most concerning of Leclerc’s quotes concern his forecasts for the rest of 2025:<\/p>\n

“We are in a difficult situation in the moment, so I just hope we can turn that situation around as soon as possible.<\/em><\/p>\n

“I think it’s very clear why we are struggling. I don’t know if we have the solutions just yet.”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rivals ready to introduce major upgrades<\/h4>\n

With the 2026 regulations less than a year away, tough decisions must be made over the coming months.<\/p>\n

Ferrari, via Fred Vasseur, have emphasised they will continue developing the SF-25 for the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n

The team believe there is enough potential in the car to justify using wind tunnel hours and diverting financial resources to its development.<\/p>\n

Despite this, the upgrades Ferrari introduced in Bahrain have had very little impact.<\/p>\n

The Scuderia have lost ground to Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes and even Williams since the first round.<\/p>\n

Of these teams, only Red Bull have brought major updates – and even then only Max Verstappen<\/a> received the RB21’s new floor.<\/p>\n

Whilst Red Bull and McLaren are also committed to this year’s title fight, the likes of Mercedes and Williams already have one eye on the 2026 regulations.<\/p>\n

In this sense, there is a risk of Ferrari getting the worst of both worlds<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On one hand, the deficit they suffer to McLaren could be too significant to recover in 2025.<\/p>\n

Even if they find a way to close the gap, the points advantage that Piastri and Norris have accumulated could be too large to overturn.<\/p>\n

There is also the risk of Ferrari losing ground in the race for 2026, with other teams more prepared to divert their resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were forced to settle for 7th and 8th place respectively at the Miami GP. Ferrari’s failure to swap Hamilton and Leclerc quickly enough – and the team radio messages that followed – have created plenty of headlines post-race. Despite this, poor strategy was not the biggest issue that emerged for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":33448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[445,2452,84,2481],"class_list":["post-33454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-charles-leclerc","tag-f1-2025-season","tag-ferrari","tag-sf-25"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33454","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=33454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33459,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33454\/revisions\/33459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}