Charles Leclerc teases “step forward” from Ferrari at F1 Chinese GP

Charles Leclerc is confident Ferrari can take a “step forward” at the Chinese Grand Prix after making a disappointing start to the 2025 F1 season.

Ferrari endured a season opener to forget in Melbourne as Leclerc and new teammate Lewis Hamilton could only finish eighth and 10th after the team made a mistake in leaving both drivers out on slick tyres for too long when a late shower hit.

After a strong pre-season test in Bahrain, Ferrari had been tipped as being McLaren’s biggest rivals in Australia but the Italian team were well off the pace in both qualifying and Sunday’s grand prix.

But Leclerc is hopeful it will be a different story in Shanghai this weekend.

“There are many things that we can definitely learn from the first weekend,” Leclerc told the official F1 channel.

“Obviously many things haven’t gone the way we wanted them to go, but it’s only the first race of the season. We’ve learned many things since then and I’m sure that we will put all the bits together for this weekend and will do a step forward.

“I still remain convinced that the potential of the car is much better than what we have seen from that first weekend. But now we need to show that on track.”

Asked if that step will be enough to fight McLaren in Shanghai, Leclerc replied: “It’s difficult to know because now every little difference can have a big influence on track.

“Also I think the track layout can have a big influence on whether you are fast or not. If you look at the last four or five races of last year, it was Mercedes dominating in Las Vegas, us very fast in Mexico, McLaren very, very fast in Abu Dhabi and that was basically the same car.”

Ferrari must ‘stay calm’ and not overreact

Despite their poor performance and high-profile strategic error which grabbed headlines, Leclerc has urged Ferrari to remain calm and not “overreact”.

The 27-year-old Monegasque cited the end of last season as an example of how quickly the competitive order can move around from one weekend to the next.

“At this point of the season you don’t really have any upgrades, so I think there are many factors that come into play,” he explained.

“We need to stay calm. The first weekend was definitely disappointing and there’s a long way to go before getting back to the level of McLaren but I don’t think we are as far [away] as what we saw on the first weekend.

“So we really need to not overreact, keep working in the right direction like we have been in the last few months, and I’m sure the results will come.”