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We’ve already heard plenty of examples of a despondent Lewis Hamilton wondering if Ferrari’s season might be a write-off, but at Imola it appears team-mate Charles Leclerc’s starting to lose faith in 2025, too.
Leclerc was visibly deflated by his elimination from Q2 at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix - as he and team-mate Hamilton could only manage 11th and 12th, making Ferrari one of only three teams not to get a car into Q3.
In Jeddah, Hamilton worried his whole season could be “painful” while Leclerc was far more buoyant.
But at Imola, Leclerc struck his most downbeat tone of the season so far, even offering an apology to the Tifosi at their home race on behalf of Ferrari.
“It's just frustrating, I'm very disappointed with the performance at the moment,” Leclerc said after qualifying.
“I guess only thing we can say is [I'm] sorry for the fans that have done many kilometres to come and see us, and the best performance we could give us was an 11th and 12th place, this hurts.
“But I hope I can do some miracles tomorrow, to be completely honest. For now, there's nothing that gives me hope for tomorrow's pace, because I think the potential of the car is not good enough at the moment.”
He said Ferrari is “P-nowhere” right now and that there is “just not the potential that we would have hoped inside this car”.
The issue, according to Leclerc, is “just [that] performance is not enough”, rather than anything that can be solved via balance or set-up changes.
So will he try a left-field strategy on Sunday to try and recover the positions?
“The right strategy is the right strategy for everyone. Whenever you go out of that way, you just hope for a safety car. Is it the right thing to do tomorrow? Maybe. But we'll see how it goes,” Leclerc replied.
“We'll do the start and then see where we are and take a decision from that moment.”
Hamilton ‘devastated’ with qualifying
Hamilton had a tricky FP2 but had a good feeling in FP3 and at the start of qualifying. That was until he looked at the leaderboard and saw the times of his rivals.
“I definitely feel devastated,” Hamilton said.
“I was gutted, I guess, because the car was generally feeling really good. It felt like the set-up was just right, the brakes were working, everything was kind of in place - and we just can’t go quicker.
“If we look how quick Max [Verstappen in the Red Bull] has gone through Turn 2, we just can’t match it. We put that new soft on at the end and for some reason, it just didn’t come alive. There was just no extra grip.”
Hamilton insists “we made progress this weekend”, but says the team sorely needs upgrades to improve.
“We've got to start adding performance to this car, clearly we're not at level of [the Red Bull], doing like 6-10kph faster through Turn 2 than us,” Hamilton said.
“We can't match them or the McLarens. We've just got to keep pushing, applying pressure, hopefully the guys can find some more performance.”
The Monaco/Barcelona problem
You’d be forgiven for thinking returning to Monaco - a track which Leclerc finally conquered in 2024 - could be just the boost Leclerc and Ferrari’s season needs.
But Leclerc thinks that Monaco could bring out the worst in the SF-25.
“I think Monaco is showing all the weaknesses of our car, so I think it's going to be a very tough weekend for us,” Leclerc said.
But what about Ferrari’s upcoming upgrade for the Spanish Grand Prix, when the FIA will also introduce more stringent flexi front wing tests?
Could that upgrade prove to be the turning point in Ferrari’s tricky season?
“It has to be a freakin' good upgrade if we want it to be a turning point,” Leclerc said.
“I mean, I honestly...I hope we will do a step in the right direction, but the road is a very long one ahead.”
