Charles Leclerc believes Ferrari’s upgraded underfloor for the 2025 F1 Austrian GP has delivered the expected amount of performance, and just about enough to propel him to a front row start for Sunday’s race, only his second of the season and a first since the Monaco “one-off”, in his own words.
The Monegasque secured a somewhat surprising P2 given Ferrari’s recent struggles in qualifying. And although he was over half-a-second off Lando Norris’ “special” pole lap, the Ferrari F1 driver showed some relief to finally be starting up at the front again following a tough season so far, in which he only started in the top two once – at Monaco – in what he described as a one-off situation.
“Nice” to start up front in “quite weak” qualifying season so far
Leclerc hopes Ferrari’s trend of having better race pace than qualifying pace in 2025 will bode well for an even stronger race day for them at the Austrian GP – but is wary that he may not “have the tools” to fight for an F1 win on merit:
“It’s nice. It’s been a long time. I think this year overall, we’ve been quite weak in qualifying and then pretty strong in the race,” he said. “But it’s good to be at least this time starting from the front row. At least we have a little bit less road to make before fighting with the guys in front. We’re there.
“However, obviously, the gap is pretty big to Lando [Norris’] lap, which must have been very special, for sure.
“But I don’t know if we’ve got the tools to fight for a victory tomorrow. However, as I said, we are normally very strong on Sunday compared to the qualifying pace, and this gives me hope.
“[I’m] very happy to be second. It’s been a very difficult season for us qualifying-wise. We’ve always been fighting for P5, P6 in best cases apart from Monaco. That was a one-off. So, it’s good to be starting a little bit further up, and to be straight away with the fast guys, straight from the start.”
Upgrades worked “enough” to secure P2 on the grid
Ferrari’s long-awaited F1 floor upgrades finally arrived for this weekend’s Austrian GP, and although it’s not the full package with the all-new rear suspension that is set for debut at the Belgian GP in late July – the Monegasque can already feel the positive impact of the new parts, which he says was enough to be the difference between starting on the front row in such a tight field behind Norris’ McLaren:
“Well, enough to be P2,” he said of the effectiveness of the updated SF-25. “Because the gaps are very tight around here, if you take off Lando.
“So it definitely helped us. I felt like there were some steps forward. How much, we need to see it in different characteristics of tracks. It’s not only on this track that we’ve got to judge that, but over multiple tracks.
“However, the numbers that we expected, we had them, which is a good start. That means that we are working in the right direction.”
Low-speed cornerning deficit to McLaren “a bit less” than initially expected
When asked where Ferrari is losing so much time compared to the McLarens, in what is one of the shortest laps of the season, Leclerc admitted they are lacking in high-speed cornering, but noted how there was a positive surprise in the low-speed deficit, which he expected to be bigger, initially:
“I think we are losing mostly on the high speed this weekend, which was expected. We expected to lose a little bit compared to McLaren in the high speed,” he said. “But probably we expected to lose even more in the low speed, which was a little bit less the case.
“So, we’ll analyse that. Obviously, we’ve brought an upgrade as well, and we are still in the learning process of understanding exactly what it does to the car.
“However, it seems to be working as expected.”
Looking to put “more pressure than usual” on the Papaya cars
Looking ahead to Sunday’s race, the Ferrari driver hopes to “put pressure” on Norris, but is well aware of the threat coming behind from Oscar Piastri, who failed to set a final lap in Q3 following Pierre Gasly’s spin, which caused a yellow flag just as the Australian approached the start of his lap:
“I’ll do everything to put more pressure than usual on those two [McLaren] guys.
“We have Oscar [Piastri] behind with a little bit of luck today, but tomorrow, try and look forward and see what’s possible.”
