Charles Leclerc had a tricky first race of the 2025 season when he finished in eighth place in the Australian Grand Prix behind several midfield cars.
The Monogasque was the quickest Ferrari driver all weekend and was keen to impress onlookers ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s debut with the team, knowing there would be questions over whether he could handle the seven-time world champion.
Ferrari initially looked on course to challenge McLaren in the race after impressive pace on Friday, but this fizzled out over the weekend and Leclerc suffered from bad tyre graining on the Intermediates.
Communication between race engineers also appeared to be a problem for both drivers, with Leclerc having a rather bizarre moment midway through the race that Peter Windsor felt was unnecessary.
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Peter Windsor thinks Charles Leclerc’s team radio moment was ‘uncalled for’ in Australian GP
Leclerc asked his engineer Bryan Bozzi if there was a leak midway through the race, after claiming there was “a lot of water” entering his cockpit. Bozzi replied: “Must be the water” referring to Leclerc’s drinks bottle leaking, only for the Monogasque to sarcastically respond: “Let’s add that to the words of wisdom.”
Fans of Leclerc thought the messages were ‘iconic’ with his engineer, but Windsor felt he was being unnecessarily facetious with his engineer when discussing it on the Cameron CC podcast.
“I don’t think there is any room for drivers trying to upstage their engineers on live radio during a Grand Prix. Do it behind closed doors in a debrief, but don’t do it on the radio as it’s wasting valuable air time when you could be talking about something important,” said Windsor.
“When Charles was having that thing about the water from the water bottle, his response should have been ‘Anything I can do about it?’ rather than ‘Oh thanks for stating the obvious’ and thinking that will get me 10 million views on Instagram. It’s got a bit out of hand.
“Charles has this slightly cynical response when it comes to things he doesn’t like, and it’s uncalled for. It demeans engineers because what you’re saying is when engineers are giving their drivers too much information, that’s immediately demeaning the job those engineers are doing. All they are trying to do is help the guys.”
Charles Leclerc wants Ferrari to look into two things for Chinese GP
It was not the start to the season that Leclerc hoped for, having also spun fighting with midfield drivers Alex Albon and Yuki Tsunoda midway through the race.
After a risky move on Hamilton at the final restart, he managed to build up enough of a gap to stay ahead of the charging Oscar Piastri who overtook the seven-time world champion for ninth.
Leclerc admitted that he made a mistake but thinks there needs to be some investigation into the team’s handling of strategy, which caused them to drop out of the top five positions.
“There are two things we have to look into. The first is easy—it was my mistake. The second is something we will sort out as a team, looking into our decisions and making sure we make the right call if the situation comes up again,” Leclerc told reporters post-race.
The Chinese Grand Prix has been a hugely successful event for them in the past, with Ferrari having won four times in Shanghai since it first joined the calendar in 2004.
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