Charles Leclerc: Ferrari has no hope of fighting for…

Charles Leclerc’s Formula 1 sprint race during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend followed a depressingly familiar pattern for Ferrari this season: heroics on the first lap, followed by a slow deflation of the team’s hopes as the SF-25 slipped backwards.

From fourth on the grid, Leclerc slipstreamed McLaren’s Lando Norris up the Kemmel Straight on the opening lap and went around the outside into Les Combes to annex third place. But while Norris’s team-mate Oscar Piastri was unable to get close enough to Max Verstappen’s Red Bull to retake the lead he’d lost at the first corner, Norris had sufficient pace in hand over the Ferrari to pass Leclerc at Les Combes on lap four.

Thereafter Leclerc fell back to cross the finishing line over 10s in arrears of the winner.

“There's some learning to take away from a race like this,” Leclerc told Sky Sports F1 afterwards. “However, it doesn't feel like we’re very far off the maximum potential of the car. I don't feel like we’re out of place with the set-up or anything like that.

“I don't think there's anything in the car that makes us hope that we can fight with Red Bull or McLaren, unfortunately.”

Ferrari has been phasing in a major upgrade package across both its cars in recent races, beginning with an entirely new underfloor in Austria and culminating with new rear suspension geometry in Spa, along with a circuit-specific low-drag rear wing. The underfloor revisions were substantial and extended from the visible ‘fences’ at the front, through new profiles for the ‘tunnels’ themselves and the exit to the diffuser, and new detailing around the floor edges ahead of the rear wheels.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari (Photo by: Clive Rose / Getty Images)

While the drivers have been broadly positive about the upgrades, the net result in terms of competitiveness has been subtle at best. Having been eliminated from SQ1 by a costly spin, Lewis Hamilton rose from 18th on the Spa sprint grid to 15th, one of the few drivers to accomplish any overtaking in what was a drearily processional race. But he seemed somewhat confused afterwards.

“Well, the positive is I didn't spin,” Hamilton told Sky Sports F1.

“And I did move forward, but it was a really tough race. We couldn't move forward in the DRS train which was unfortunate – but I’ve definitely learned a lot about the upgrades that we have.

“I was just reflecting, part of the upgrade Charles has had since Montreal – and you saw the crash that he had there was kind of similar to something that I had yesterday.”

Leclerc did indeed have a rear-axle lock-up in first practice for the Canadian GP, spinning him into the wall at Turn 3 hard enough to a require a new chassis. But Ferrari did not declare any upgrades that weekend.

This is not to say there were no new components, since there is no requirement to declare changes unless they involve a change to surface profiles. But it could equally be that Hamilton has got his timeline muddled given the blizzard of documentation he has been firing off to senior personnel recently.