Lewis Hamilton's fate uncertain as Charles Leclerc repeats Ferrari concern

Daily Mirror

6 days ago

Ferrari come into the Spanish Grand Prix on the back of their best result of 2025 so far in Monaco setting up an intriguing weekend for Lewis Hamilton and a pessimistic Charles Leclerc
Charles Leclerc has once again downplayed Ferrari's chances of success, this time ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix. But as he did the same before last weekend's Monaco Grand Prix, where the Scuderia secured their best result of the season so far, it is difficult to know what to expect.
Monegasque Leclerc was adamant that there would be little hope he could secure back-to-back victories in his homeland. But he was only narrowly beaten to pole position by Lando Norris and, with overtaking impossible in the race, would have won if he hadn't been pipped by the Brit in qualifying.
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And team-mate Lewis Hamilton produced his best qualifying result of 2025, going fourth quickest on Saturday. He was knocked down the grid by three places because of a penalty but was one of only a few drivers to make progress and finished fifth.
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Leclerc had been worried about most of the corners in Monaco being slow-speed, where Ferrari had struggled all year. Asked after the race why his predictions were so wrong, he hypothesised that it was because his team was able to focus purely on increasing pace at such turns.
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And, as a result, the 27-year-old said he does not believe Ferrari will be able to carry over those improvements in Barcelona this weekend. He said: "The only explanation I can find for now is that on a track like this, where there's only low speed – basically no high-speed corners – in most of the tracks, we had to take compromises in order to not lose too much in high-speed corners.
"We don't have to set up the car in a way where we compromise anything here because we just focus on the low speed. And when we are on these kinds of tracks, it seems that there's some performance in the low speed from the car.
"But we are a little bit stuck at the moment on other tracks, so I don't think we can apply it to any other tracks other than Monaco, unfortunately."
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His message was echoed by team principal Frederic Vasseur who is also cautious about where Ferrari stand. But the Frenchman is hoping that his outfit will at least be able to show progress in terms of its one-lap pace in Barcelona.
He said: "Even if we were not happy with P2, I think we did a much better job in the preparation of the weekend, it went well. But it's not that we are on those two-day racing and it will work on every single track. I think that this is true for us, this is true for everybody on the grid.
"With the tyres sometimes you finish the weekend and you have the feeling to have everything under control. You have to start from scratch a week after and that we have to keep an open mind and spend next week and do a good job again."