Ferrari "lose weekends on Saturdays," claims Leclerc as he reflects on his brilliant drive in Jeddah
Having delivered a faultless driver at Sunday's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc was left delighted with the race pace of his SF25, but he also rued Ferrari's woes in qualifying which has hindered the Scuderia all through the opening rounds in 2025.
Ferrari appeared to struggle for pace across the practice sessions, and so significant were their struggles that Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were forced to bolt on a second set of fresh softs in Q1 to progress into the middle segment of qualifying.
However, the SF25 came in the race alive. Leclerc started on the medium rubber and was able to run a very long opening stint, managing his tyres better than any other drivers.
The Monegasque then switched to the hards for his final stint, and although he dropped down the order, he enjoyed a big tyre offset and was able to get past Russell. In the closing stages, Leclerc was forced to hold off a late charge from Norris, but he managed to bag his first podium of the season.
His team-mate Hamilton also started on the mediums, and he also tried to extend his first stint. He was unfortunate tough as he lost crucial time when Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen overtook him on their fresh tyres.
He displayed a great pace on his second stint, and closed in on his Mercedes replacement Andrea Kimi Antonelli, but he was unable to move any further forward than P7.
Assessing his race performance, Leclerc said that he left nothing on the table as he extracted the maximum of his SF25 following a tough qualifying day.
"We absolutely maximised everything this weekend. We executed the race perfectly, both in terms of strategy and the pit stop. Our mechanics have worked very hard to arrive at this level and I'm really proud of the job our team did today.
"We made the most of it. Looking forward, we have to focus on qualifying. Sector one was our main weakness in qualifying here, while it may have been our best sector in the race, so we will work on finding the right balance there and push to make another step forward."
Pushed on whether the result was the maximum possible, the eight-time race winner reflected: “Yeah by far, I never expected to finish there. Honestly, I thought that this race was about defending the cars behind, especially Kimi [Antonelli], so it was really good.”
“We need to keep pushing the maximum. Hopefully upgrades are coming soon in order to improve the car.”
Commenting on his radio exchange with Bryan Bozzi, who replaced his former race engineer Xavier Marcos, Leclerc noted that they have established a very good relationship over the past twelve months.
“He was very chill. Bryan was very relaxed on the pit wall. For me it was a bit more intense inside the car but, yeah, we have a very good relationship. I think that we can see it on track now and it shows results, so I’m really happy about this,' conceded Leclerc.
