Charles Leclerc has called on Ferrari to accelerate its development programme after the Scuderia finished well off the pace of Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku.
Leclerc qualified on the front row but eight tenths of a second behind pole-sitter George Russell, and his race unravelled further from there. Starting on soft tyres in an attempt to lead early, he was overtaken by Oscar Piastri and both Red Bull drivers during the first stint and ultimately finished fourth after Piastri dropped out of the points late in the race.
“We were quite far off Mercedes, far off Red Bull, a bit behind McLaren - these are our competitors and it’s not new,” Leclerc said after the race. “It’s been quite a few races now that we’re losing a little bit of track to them, so it’s important that we react to that and that we bring upgrades in order to close the gap again.”
Ferrari chose not to introduce any updates in Baku, a decision that contrasted with McLaren and Red Bull, both of which made changes to their cars ahead of the street circuit race. Mercedes also ran without updates but has set the pace for much of the season.
Leclerc acknowledged uncertainty over whether Ferrari’s development pipeline would be sufficient to keep pace with its rivals and protect second place in the Constructors’ Championship. “We’ve got things in the pipeline, but I don’t know what the others have in the pipeline,” he said. “We are going to improve the car - whether it’s going to be enough to outrace them in the development programme… I don’t know what they have in store.”
Teammate Lewis Hamilton endured an equally difficult weekend, failing to advance from his sixth-place starting position. A hard-fought overtake on Lando Norris was his main highlight before he was passed by Kimi Antonelli. Hamilton attributed his struggles to persistent tyre issues throughout the weekend.
“I was just surprised all weekend - I couldn’t get the tyres working at all,” Hamilton said. “Even through the whole race the tyres were just switching on, switching off, switching on, switching off. We were seconds a lap slower than the cars right at the front, so there was nothing I could do.”