Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were being billed as the best driver pairing of 2025, poised to take Ferrari to championship glory together. But just a few weeks into the season, reports have started suggesting that they are at a crossroads regarding the development trajectory of the SF-25.
While Ferrari is struggling to keep up with front-runners McLaren, both drivers are trying their level best to find a sweet spot of performance in the SF-25—sadly, to no avail.
Hamilton may have won the sprint race in China three weeks ago, but he hasn’t been consistently quick enough to lead the Scuderia’s charge. Meanwhile, Leclerc—still chasing his first podium of the season—has looked the more incisive of the two, posing a greater threat to the top three.
Regardless, they remain in the same boat as long as Ferrari continues to suffer from an average three-tenth pace deficit to McLaren—an assessment Leclerc made in China. Since then, the Ferrari duo have had contrasting results, with Leclerc finishing fourth in the Japanese GP last weekend, while Hamilton struggled to make progress and ended up seventh.
After the race concluded in Suzuka, the Briton revealed that he had opted for a different setup than the Monegasque, which he believed explained his lack of pace. Leclerc confirmed the same, but that didn’t mean he chose an entirely separate development path for the SF-25.
“I don’t understand how these rumors were born. What I said, I reiterate here, and there are no negative things: ‘there is a direction taken that I found very interesting to work and in which I want to continue pushing,’” he said on Thursday in Bahrain.
The #16 driver clarified that they are just testing the waters before finalizing what the right path of development is for this year’s car. “We are all here to maximize the potential of the car, and if I feel comfortable putting the car in a different ‘place’, then it’s good for everyone,” Leclerc added.
#BahrainGP | Charles Leclerc shuts down rumours that he is going in a different technical direction with the SF-25.
“I don’t understand how these rumours were born. What I said, I reiterate here, and there are no negative things: ‘there is a direction taken that I found… pic.twitter.com/OOTZq1CIQt
— deni (@fiagirly) April 10, 2025
All in all, the reports of differing setups and development paths at Ferrari appear to be exaggerated—a byproduct of the frustration surrounding the team’s inability to produce a title-contending car once again.
Even Hamilton’s comments pointed to underlying issues within the SF-25 that are hampering the Italian outfit’s performance. As for the setup differences, that’s a common occurrence—drivers often experiment with varying setups during race weekends, especially when there’s uncertainty around competitiveness.
Nevertheless, the seven-time world champion remains hopeful that Ferrari’s Bahrain GP upgrades will provide much-needed relief and a boost in overall performance. “I’m not really feeling huge amounts of issues, it’s just that we lack overall performance, pace-wise, which we’ll hopefully take a step on this weekend.”
For now, Ferrari can only hope to find a way out of this unexpected early-season slump.
