Charles Leclerc has admitted that Ferrari has to “reset our expectations” going into Formula 1‘s Spanish Grand Prix after his podium exploits last weekend in Monaco.
Leclerc went into his home race one week ago expressing concern that Monte Carlo’s abundance of slow-speed corners would expose the SF-25’s greatest limitation.
Ferrari’s actual competitiveness proved to be much stronger than the Monegasque had envisaged, though, as he headed all three practice sessions prior to qualifying.
But despite missing out on a coveted pole position to Lando Norris, Leclerc’s eventual second place provided a morale boost to Ferrari amid an arduous start to 2025.
However, the Monegasque has cautioned that Ferrari’s surprise upturn is not primed to translate to a more conventional venue like the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
“I think we’ve got to reset a little bit our expectations going into this weekend compared to a weekend like Monaco where it was a bit more positive,” Leclerc told media including Motorsport Week.
“I was genuinely surprised, I think, after FP1 already. The previous years we always kind of expected to be strong in Monaco.
“I mean, we are not saying that we are going to dominate the weekend, but we know that we are going to be strong. This year I genuinely thought that we would be poor.
“I think that gave us more understanding of our car and maybe the strength of this car that played a bigger part than what we thought in Monaco.
“I will be happily surprised again this weekend, but I don’t think that there is any downplay for this weekend. It’s what I genuinely think.
“I think that we will be back to normal, which means a situation that we have struggled with since the beginning of the season, especially in qualifying.
“In the race maybe better, but we also expect very warm weather.
“We have seen that with warm temperatures McLaren tends to be very, very fast. So, yes, everything points towards a more normal weekend for us.”
Leclerc insists Ferrari ‘in the same situation’
Leclerc also denied that Ferrari has made a breakthrough with the SF-25 that will require him to stop sampling aggressive set-up choices to extract the car’s potential.
“However, it doesn’t change our approach,” he continued.
“I think more than an extreme set-up, I think the balance that we are trying to target is very, very aggressive this year and we’ve got to run like that and that doesn’t change now. So we are still in the same situation for this.”
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