Charles Leclerc’s gloomy Ferrari victory claim triggers Fred Vasseur response

Fred Vasseur has offered his take on whether Ferrari can win another race before the end of F1 2025, following Charles Leclerc suggesting it won’t happen.

Charles Leclerc led the first half of the Hungarian Grand Prix, but a mysterious loss of pace in the second half led to him falling out of the podium places.

Charles Leclerc: Ferrari knew this was the ‘one opportunity’

In a year that has been dominated by McLaren’s MCL39 as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have won all but three of the 14 Grands Prix so far in F1 2025, Ferrari appeared to take a step forward across the Belgian and Hungarian double-header.

Following on from finishing third in Belgium, holding off Max Verstappen’s Red Bull throughout, Leclerc took pole position in Budapest and led convincingly for the first half of the race.

At a track where overtaking comes at a premium due to its tight and twisty nature, Leclerc looked in control of the race, only to suffer a mysterious drop-off in pace after his final pitstop.

Lapping some two seconds of a lap slower, Leclerc fell behind both McLaren drivers and was also overtaken by Mercedes’ George Russell to finish a disappointed fourth place.

While the exact details of the pace loss haven’t been detailed by Ferrari, hints from team boss Fred Vasseur are that it was linked to a chassis issue, while speculated theories offered by some pundits, as well as Russell, have suggested Ferrari needed to raise its ride height by way of increased tyre pressures in the final stint.

Ferrari is the only team amongst the top four yet to win a race this year and, speaking after the chequered flag in Hungary, Leclerc said he is unsure whether Ferrari has the car to challenge McLaren for a victory in the final 10 race weekends of the year, with Hungary perhaps representing the Scuderia’s best chance of a win this year.

“I’m not sure. I don’t think so,” Leclerc said of his chances between now and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in December.

“I think they [McLaren] are the strongest team out there, and even today, they were very, very fast.

“On a track like this, what gave me hope of winning is that we were starting first, and with the dirty air, it’s a struggle to get past. I think Oscar [Piastri] probably had a bit more pace than me, but couldn’t overtake.

“I don’t think we are going into the second half of the season thinking that we can win anywhere.

“That’s what makes the frustration even bigger, because we knew that this was one opportunity probably over the season and we had to take it, but unfortunately, with this issue, we couldn’t do much.”

F1 2025: The season’s winners and losers

👉 The results of the F1 2025 championship

👉 The updated Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship standings

Fred Vasseur: Ferrari sees a lot of positives

Vasseur was pragmatic as ever when he spoke to the media afterward, suggesting that he doesn’t quite share Leclerc’s setting of low expectations for the second half of the F1 2025 season.

The recent uptick in performance, Vasseur said, means that he simply “doesn’t know” whether the SF-25 may yet prove itself to be a race-winning machine over the next 10 race weekends.

“I don’t have the crystal ball, but if you have a look at Spa, we were back, we were two-tenths off in the race,” he said.

“This weekend, we did the pole position, and we were able to stay in front for 40 laps.

“We can also see a lot of positives, for sure, that picture at the end is not a good one, and we have a lot of frustration.

“But we can also take the positive of the last two weekends with a good upgrade on the car, that the performance is back, that we don’t have to draw a conclusion on the last stint.”

McLaren boss Andrea Stella believes Ferrari will be a constant thorn in the side for the Woking-based squad over the remainder of the current regulation cycle, saying, “I think Ferrari is going to be a contender for victories for the remainder of the season.

“Definitely anytime we were racing in the second part of the season, we will have to take into account that he qualified and led the race, and we will have to deal with Ferrari.”

For Vasseur, the chances of this happening will only come when the Scuderia puts in a particularly strong weekend, while McLaren is able to be at the front on a consistent basis, no matter the conditions.

“It’s difficult to predict,” he said, “also because I think the picture of one day is not the same through the next weekend.

“But at least I would say that the last two that we are back on the pace in Spa, and this one [ Hungary]. We are consistent. We are quite consistent on the tyres. We are able to manage the pace, and if we are back in quali we will fight with them.

“I think that the advantage that they have today is that they are always there.

“Doesn’t matter, they are performing in every single condition when we are a bit more inconsistent during the weekend.

“And if we want to win, we need to be very consistent in every single condition, in FP have good preparation for the race, and Q1, Q2, Q3 all the same, and in the race with the different compounds and so on. I think today they are a bit more consistent.”

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