Charles Leclerc has dispelled the concern surrounding the reported balance problems that Ferrari experienced with the team’s 2025 Formula 1 car in pre-season testing.
Ferrari is going into the upcoming campaign regarded as a title contender based upon the late surge in 2024 that saw it almost pip McLaren to the Constructors’ Championship.
The testing timesheets in Bahrain indicated that the Italian marque is in a good position as it placed second and third, Leclerc right behind new team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
However, both drivers struggled with the SF-25 – which comprises several notable changes compared to its predecessor – as the conditions became more representative.
Leclerc validated that assessment when he admitted that Ferrari has “work to do” to improve the worsening car balance that he communicated as proceedings progressed.
But although that was interpreted as an inherent limitation being exposed, Leclerc has revealed that Ferrari’s particular run programme created an incorrect perception.
“There’s definitely some more potential to unlock,” Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week. “But to be honest, it’s not like we’ve had an issue during testing with the balance.
“We haven’t done anything to try and cure the balance issues we’ve had. Because we were just trying different options of set-up.
“So we’ve tested and went through a lot of different directions in terms of set-up to try and understand which are the directions we need to push for this first race and to understand the car, which I think we did a good job. But we never really optimised the car.
“But I don’t think any other teams did as well. So we’ll only see on Saturday where we are standing compared to the others.”
Ferrari attempting to optimise SF-25 set-up
Leclerc explained how the limited practice available to the teams on race weekends compelled Ferrari to use testing to explore the car in a more aggressive configuration.
The Monegasque divulged that both he and Hamilton have since utilised the Maranello-based squad’s simulator in the two-week break in order to refine the SF-25’s balance.
“Honestly, in Formula 1 nowadays, working on the balance in itself is probably the easiest part,” he highlighted.
“It’s just that now in Formula 1 there are so many different directions that you can take in terms of actual philosophy, with these new cars especially, that this we thought we could learn the most and improve the most the car.
“And these are also things that you cannot really do during a race weekend because it changes so much the feeling with the car that you cannot afford to do that in FP1 or FP2.
“So we had to get that out of the way and we did during testing. And now for the fine-tuning of the balance, we’ll go on that.
“I mean, we already did a lot of work on that on the simulator and we’ll try and build on what we’ve learned in the simulator here during the free practices.”
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