Charles Leclerc says Ferrari's progress next year is critical to his future at the Formula 1 team, as he warns it will be a ‘now or never’ season for the squad.
Off the back of a super challenging 2025 campaign where Ferrari did not win a grand prix and its drivers battled with a difficult car, Leclerc is hopeful that its early commitment of resources to next year will pay off when it comes to the new rules era.
However, he is under no illusions of the importance of the squad hitting the ground running with the new regulations.
With new power unit and chassis rules, any concept mistake that puts a team on the back foot could prove costly in leaving a competitor stuck at the back of the field.
And that is why, with Leclerc already having been linked with other teams despite a long-term contract with Ferrari, he suggests that next year could define his future.
Asked by The Race, off the back of the current struggles, if he still believed he could be world champion with Ferrari, he said: “I do."
But he added: "And next year will be a crucial year.”
Long road back
With Ferrari having pulled its design team off aero work on its 2025 challenger around April this year, it is hoping that this has given it a head start for the new generation rules.
But with every team on the grid confident that they have got rolling early enough with their 2026 designs to be able to do well next year, not everyone is going to be able to live up to their expectations.
This is why Leclerc thinks that where teams end up next year will pretty much decide their fate in F1 for the medium term.
“It's tough but at the same time, honestly, I think the whole team is hugely motivated for next year, because it's such a big change, a huge opportunity to show what Ferrari is capable of,” he said. “And it's now or never.
“So I really hope that we will start this new era on the right foot, because, yeah, it's important for the four years after.”
Leclerc thinks the final verdict on how good a team is may not become clear early on, either in testing or the opening races, but should be pretty obvious by the time the first third of the campaign is done.
Asked if he thought it would be a long road back for any team not successful next season, he said: “Yeah, I think it would be. Maybe not in the first three-four races, but by race six-seven, I think we'll have a good idea of who are the teams that will be dominating for the four years after."
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur does not see things from the same perspective as Leclerc suggested, and said he does not sense a greater “urgency” in Ferrari delivering.
Instead, he thinks that is perfectly normal for drivers like Leclerc to want to push things forward and deliver success in the shortest timeframe possible.
“We are just trying to do a better job, on every single pillar of the performance - on the engine, on the gearbox, on the aero, on the set-up, on the simulator,” he said. “This is the DNA of what we are doing.
“But all of us, it's not that just one team is waking up in the morning, [says] 'we are not doing a good job, we have to push that'.
"Trust me that I think Max [Verstappen] is pushing the team at the limit. Lando [Norris] is pushing the team at the limit, and it's honestly, as an F1 team, it's also what we are expecting.
“It's part of their job. But if, Charles and Lewis [Hamilton], if they were very happy with the car and with everything, I would be desperate. But this is more positive than something else.”
