Charles Leclerc gave a troubling answer at the Bahrain Grand Prix about Ferrari’s update timeline

Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc was the most in-form driver on the grid at the end of last season, but he’s been unable to continue that momentum into 2025.

At last year’s finale in Abu Dhabi, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz had an opportunity to win the constructors’ championship for Ferrari.

Leclerc produced one of his best performances in Formula 1 that Sunday to go from the back row of the grid onto the podium, but Lando Norris’ victory denied Ferrari their first title since 2008.

Going into pre-season, with new teammate Lewis Hamilton by his side, Leclerc would have been optimistic that his team would find the solution to their small deficit to McLaren.

What transpired was Leclerc not enjoying Ferrari’s latest car, and the best of the rest tag they earned during testing quickly disappearing at the season opener in Australia.

Ferrari’s double disqualification in China was the low point this season, but after four race weekends, they still sit fourth in the championship, and are already nearly 100 points behind McLaren.

While Leclerc and Hamilton both produced their best results of the season in Bahrain, the Monegasque driver still wasn’t happy.

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Charles Leclerc not happy with Ferrari’s update timeline after the Bahrain Grand Prix

Journalist Jon Noble was speaking on The Race F1 Podcast about Sunday’s race in Bahrain and talking about Ferrari’s latest update package, he said: “I think there’s progress, but I think they’ve hit the ceiling of performance of this car.

“I spoke to Charles after the race, because it initially looked like he was on a slightly offset strategy from everybody else, which gave them the benefit of fresher tyres for the second stint.

“He kind of tagged himself onto the back of Russell and looked like if he could kind of break through, you think, well, maybe he can pull off a strategy here and get up and is the Ferrari actually a dark horse here to do something more spectacular?

“But they didn’t have another medium left, so they had to go for the hard at the safety car and then the pace fell away.

“I spoke to Charles afterwards and thought he might be quite pleased with that performance, but he wasn’t. He felt that the tyre offset flattered their performance, that they’re simply not quick enough. The car’s lacking pace. It’s nowhere near a match for the McLaren.

“And I think considering the high hopes they had coming into the season, that they’d made the step, that they could carry on the momentum at the end of last year, where it was pretty much a match for McLaren, pending track characteristics.

“Some would suit the Ferrari, some were suiting the McLaren, it’s not happened. They’ve dropped back a bit.

“They don’t have the brilliant time management of the McLaren. It’s not quick enough. It needs improvements.

“I asked Charles, so when are these improvements coming? And his message principally was not soon enough.”

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How Charles Leclerc’s start to the 2025 F1 season compares to his previous campaigns at Ferrari

Leclerc has every right not to be happy, considering he would have gone into 2025 expecting to be challenging both McLaren drivers and Max Verstappen this year.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, and for the first time since 2021, the team hasn’t recorded a podium in their first four races.

Hamilton’s Sprint Race is looking more and more like an outlier at this stage, but it does at least give the team some hope to cling to.

Ferrari fans weren’t happy when they saw Leclerc’s data from the race in Bahrain, however, the team are at least taking some steps forward, even if they’re not fast enough for the 27-year-old’s liking.