Charles Leclerc has placed third in Pit Debrief’s driver rankings for the 2025 F1 season.
If the Monégasque’s F1 title aspirations in 2025 had fizzled out before they even properly ignited, it was entirely down to the performance of the SF-25, which was, at times, more temperamental than the weather in Zandvoort. It was primarily his sheer grit and usual on-track excellence that ensured Ferrari were in contention for second in the constructors’ championship for the better part of the year.
While his fifth position in the official standings might seem unimpressive on the surface, Leclerc maximised the potential of a tricky car in the majority of the race weekends. He scored Ferrari’s solitary Grand Prix pole position of the season, along with all seven of their podium finishes. The eight-time race winner also pulled off more top-four finishes than all other drivers aside from the McLaren duo and Max Verstappen.
Taking into consideration how convincingly he outperformed teammate Lewis Hamilton and the bold racecraft, remarkable adaptability, and resilient one-lap pace he exhibited throughout his eighth campaign in F1, Leclerc has earned the third position in our end-of-season rankings.
Campaign gradually looking up after stumbling at the start
Having fallen short of the F1 constructors’ crown by only 14 points in 2024, both Ferrari and Charles Leclerc entered the final year of the current ground effect era hoping to challenge for title glory.
Although Leclerc showed promising pace in the practice sessions, reality set in once Ferrari geared up for qualifying in Melbourne. Following the poor eighth-place finish in the rain-hit season opener, he suffered yet another devastating blow in China. The FIA found the Monégasque’s SF-25 underweight and disqualified him from the race.
Leclerc’s campaign finally appeared to kick off in Suzuka with a respectable P4 finish. While he had to settle for fourth once more in the next round, the Ferrari driver put up a good fight against Lando Norris in an inferior car during a scrap for third in the latter stages of the Bahrain GP.
The 28-year-old eventually claimed his maiden podium of the season in Jeddah, despite the newly crowned world champion and his rapid MCL39 trying to chase him down until the end.
From several podiums to the lowest point of the season
An unfortunate aquaplaning incident on the reconnaissance lap forced Charles Leclerc to remain on the sidelines during the Sprint race in Miami, and his haul at the Grand Prix amounted to an underwhelming 6 points.
At Imola, the Monégasque experienced his only Q2 exit of the season, having complained of brake issues throughout practice. With the timing of the Safety Car placing him at a disadvantage on Sunday, he finished behind his teammate for the first time in 2025.
In spite of the Woking-based squad boasting the fastest package on the city streets of Monte Carlo, Leclerc managed to split the McLarens and missed out on pole position by just a tenth. After bagging a strong second-place finish on his home turf, he got the jump on Verstappen at the Safety Car restart in Spain and made it onto the podium.
The next round in Canada was quite unimpressive for the Italian team, and Leclerc ultimately settled for fifth at the end of 70 laps. Meanwhile, the Red Bull Ring saw the Ferrari driver qualify in P2 and have a quiet but fruitful race en route to a podium.
As the 2025 F1 campaign hit the halfway mark, Leclerc endured a horrid afternoon in England and came home as the penultimate finisher in wet/dry conditions. Opting for an extreme set-up, he was one of a handful of drivers to pit at the end of the formation lap and swap intermediate tyres for slicks. However, the gamble didn’t pay off, and the eight-time race winner found himself miles off the pace of Hamilton for the only time this year.
A couple of highs and lows
Charles Leclerc, nonetheless, bounced back immediately from his setback at Silverstone. Despite running a lower downforce package than Verstappen and struggling for grip in the wet conditions, he successfully held off the Red Bull driver in the early stages of the Belgian GP. Defending became easier once the track dried, but it still required the Monte Carlo native to avoid any major errors with an astute overtaker on his tail. He ultimately maximised the car’s potential and celebrated with a trip to the rostrum.
Against all expectations, Leclerc then claimed his only pole position of the year in Budapest. With track conditions appearing to fall away after drops of rain in Q2, he produced a stunning final lap in Q3 to overhaul previous session leaders Oscar Piastri and Norris by a matter of hundredths.
However, joy turned into dismay as Leclerc’s SF-25 dramatically lost performance across the final stint on Sunday. A chassis problem caused the Ferrari driver to slip backwards to fourth on a day where he had hoped to take a victory.
The SF-25 getting worse post-summer break
As the F1 summer break came to an end, the Dutch GP saw Leclerc experience the first retirement of his 2025 campaign. Despite snatching fifth place from George Russell with a feisty move on Lap 32, he had Kimi Antonelli understeer straight into the side of his Ferrari after his second pit stop and end his race.
While the Scuderia would’ve preferred to end the European leg on a high note, the Tifosi’s dreams of a home win, or even a podium, unfortunately, did not materialise this year at Monza, and Leclerc had to settle for fourth.
Next, the narrow streets of Baku saw the 27-time pole-sitter lose his impressive streak of four consecutive pole positions as he found the barrier in slippery conditions. On Sunday, he finished behind his teammate for the third and last time in 2025.
Ferrari had a pretty lacklustre weekend in Singapore, with Leclerc suffering from an imbalance in temperature between the right- and left-rear brakes. The lift and coast he had to perform in different stages of the 62-lap race ultimately relegated him to sixth place.
An encouraging respite
The Maranello-based outfit finally experienced a change in fortunes on the other side of the Atlantic. Following a difficult Sprint, Charles Leclerc turned his Saturday around and missed out on the front row by only six-thousandths.
The eight-time race winner got ahead of Norris at the start and kept the Brit at bay for 21 laps with his impressive defensive driving in the Lone Star State. With the two going head-to-head again in the final laps, the McLaren driver utilised his fresher rubber and eventually made a move stick on Lap 51, leaving Leclerc to round out the podium in third.
In Mexico City, the Monégasque produced a superb lap in qualifying yet again and joined Norris on the front row. A thrilling finale to the race saw Verstappen pursue him for second place. While the late VSC appeared to aid him a little bit, the Monte Carlo native held on for P2 with a margin of just 0.725 seconds.
In the next round at Interlagos, Leclerc put together a good session to claim P3 in Grand Prix qualifying, and a podium finish was on the cards. However, he became an inadvertent victim of Piastri and Antonelli in spite of giving them a wide berth at the Safety Car restart. Losing a tyre ultimately forced the Ferrari driver to retire his car.
Concluding season’s final Sunday on a hopeful note after two hopeless rounds
As the final three rounds would demonstrate, the joyful champagne showers didn’t last, and the recurring bout of underperformance arrested the momentum of the Prancing Horse once again.
Given the SF-25’s tendency to lose competitiveness in low-grip conditions, Charles Leclerc powering through to Q3 in Las Vegas was no mean feat when Hamilton found himself dead last in the wet qualifying session.
Under the neon lights of Sin City, the Monégasque’s charge “like an animal” in the opening stint involved several stunning overtakes, including one on Piastri. Even though he challenged the Australian driver in the second stint, the 28-year-old initially had to settle for sixth at the chequered flag. In the end, McLaren’s double disqualification promoted him to fourth place.
Unlike other rounds, Ferrari’s progress across the race weekend was negligible in Qatar. After finishing outside the points in the Sprint, Leclerc managed to drag the unstable SF-25 to the final segment of qualifying against all odds. However, he struggled to keep the car on the track throughout the race and scored merely four points on Sunday.
Although the car was miles off the pace of the title contenders in Abu Dhabi, Leclerc still pulled off a miracle to qualify in P5 when his teammate registered a Q1 exit for the third round in a row. He picked off Russell at the start and pushed flat out for the majority of the laps, but the Ferrari simply wasn’t fast enough to demote Norris to fourth in the final race of the 2025 F1 season.
Leclerc facing a new teammate
After partnering with Carlos Sainz for four years, Charles Leclerc found himself going up against a seven-time world champion in 2025.
While the 27-time pole-sitter’s one-lap brilliance is highly lauded across the F1 paddock, this recognition, unfortunately, has also bred a misconception that often prompts many to vastly underrate his skill set over a race distance.
Ahead of the 2025 season, quite a few pundits had predicted that Hamilton would go toe to toe with Leclerc or even come out on top when it came to the teammates’ battle on Sundays. Instead, the eight-time race winner has dealt the most successful F1 driver of all time his most comprehensive defeat yet.
Granted that Hamilton’s final Mercedes campaign was only good enough for seventh place in the championship table, he still kept Russell honest throughout 2024. In contrast, his first season donning the iconic ‘Rosso Corsa’ has been anything but plain sailing.
It’s certainly understandable that a driver who had spent the past 12 years with the Silver Arrows would go through a learning curve after joining a new team. The primary challenges included getting to grips with a unique culture and a single-seater that’s “massively different in characteristics” compared to his previous cars.
However, one would still expect a champion of Hamilton’s calibre and repute to rise to the challenge and perform at a reasonably high level relative to the teammate who has been handling F1 machinery for less than half the time he has.
The SF-25 was, no doubt, a handful. Nevertheless, Leclerc managed to extract the last drop of performance from the wayward car in the majority of the competitive sessions. Meanwhile, apart from a controlled performance in the Shanghai Sprint, Hamilton never really found his feet and struggled to tame his Ferrari throughout the season.
Head-to-head statistics back Leclerc
With regard to how his performance measured up to Hamilton’s over the course of the 2025 F1 season, Charles Leclerc sealed the qualifying battle 19-5 and was 0.257 seconds faster on average. He also enjoyed a head-to-head advantage of 18-3 when it came to Grand Prix results.
While Leclerc reached the final segment of qualifying an impressive 23 times, Hamilton only managed to register 15 Q3 appearances on his end. Moreover, the 28-year-old didn’t endure a single Q1 exit in 2025, in comparison to his teammate’s four.
Leclerc also held the upper hand in Sprint qualifying, stacking up 4-2 against the 104-time pole-sitter. However, he faced a more competitive side of Hamilton in the Sprint races, and the Stevenage native matched him 3-3.
In 5 Sprint races and 24 Grands Prix, the Monégasque driver scored 242 points and concluded his campaign in fifth place. Despite Hamilton ending up right behind him in the championship table, it’s worth noting that a sizable 86-point gap separated the two.
A campaign worthy of applause
Unlike twelve months ago, Ferrari didn’t contend for the constructors’ title till the final race of 2025. However, this abject failure in no way detracts from Charles Leclerc’s excellent personal performance across the season.
With the Maranello-based squad changing 99 per cent of their car ahead of the final year of the current F1 regulations, the SF-25 missed the mark and was hardly ever capable of contending for the top positions. As such, Leclerc beating Hamilton by every metric and managing to score 86 more points should carry more weight than their respective positions in the championship standings.
Given that Leclerc managed to put the Ferrari on pole only once in 24 rounds, one might assume that his one-lap prowess took a back seat in 2025. While it’s undeniable that the SF-25 inherited its predecessor’s struggles in terms of getting the tyres up to temperature, the Monégasque’s innate skills over a single lap nonetheless managed to shine through. He had the second-most Q3 appearances during the season—the same as Verstappen and Russell—despite finding himself behind the wheel of an inferior car.
From the Chinese GP onwards, Ferrari grappled with ride height problems that narrowed their set-up window and often triggered a loss of performance. In addition, halting the development of the 2025 challenger early on to redirect time and resources to next year’s project further compounded their woes in the remaining 22 rounds. With barely any noteworthy moments on the track, the SF-25 was overall the fourth-best car of the season that frequently forced the Monte Carlo native to fight for positions that are not indicative of his talent.
At the end of the day, the only entity standing between the historic Prancing Horse and the ignominy of being labelled as an outright midfield team was, unsurprisingly, Leclerc.
Why Leclerc deserves a podium in the F1 2025 driver rankings
Charles Leclerc once again quietly delivered performances of championship calibre during the 2025 F1 season without actually having a championship-worthy car underneath him.
With new technical regulations coming into effect, eleven teams will find themselves in a cloud of uncertainty in 2026. As long as Project 678 doesn’t fall short of Ferrari’s lofty expectations, they will, in all likelihood, be able to count on Leclerc’s underrated adaptability to rise swiftly up the pecking order. After all, the only weapons missing from his arsenal right now are a competitive car and an operationally steadfast team that fosters efficient communication and collaboration.
Although Leclerc was unable to stand on the top step of the rostrum in 2025, his robust campaign nevertheless saw him fend off faster cars and gain dozens of positions with fantastic launches off the line. Whether it’s his daring overtake on Russell at Zandvoort or the masterclasses in defence he delivered against Norris in Saudi Arabia and Verstappen in Belgium, the Monégasque demonstrated once again that he is one of the standout drivers on the current grid when it comes to elite racecraft.
When accounting for his performance relative to the tricky car he had, the overall competition he faced, and how exhaustively he trounced his seven-time world champion teammate, it’s not surprising at all that the Pit Debrief team has awarded Leclerc the third position ahead of Piastri in the F1 2025 driver rankings.
