Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc cut a forlorn figure after the Japanese Grand Prix, having been unable to fight for a podium place at Suzuka.

The Monegasque finished in fourth place, but never looked capable of getting in the mix for a podium place as Max Verstappen and the two McLarens pulled away up front.

Charles Leclerc: Not enough performance in the SF-25

Following on from the disappointing shock of its double disqualification from the points last time out in China, Ferrari aimed to bounce back at Suzuka.

But neither Leclerc nor teammate Lewis Hamilton could make it onto the podium as McLaren was still the clearly quickest car, while Max Verstappen kept Red Bull in contention by taking pole position and racing to the win.

Leclerc started on the medium tyres and pitted on the same lap as the leaders, Lap 21, to swap to the hard tyre. But he wasn’t able to get close enough to the leading trio to fight for the podium and came home a distant fourth, 16 seconds off the lead, with Mercedes’ George Russell right behind him for company.

“Yeah, it was a bit of an annoying race,” Leclerc summed up afterward.

“I was completely on my own; the guys in front were too quick.

“In the first stint, I thought maybe there was something to do, but then they started to push more, and they were just faster.

“Disappointing because, when you put everything together like we’ve done this weekend, I think the balance was in the right place. There’s just not enough performance in the car.

“We’ve just got to maximise the points, which is what we have done. I hope that later on in the season, we can fight for better.”

In the early stages of the race, as he kept the McLarens in view, Leclerc was asked whether he could tell where the SF-25 is weaker than the MCL39.

“A bit everywhere,” he said.

“Maybe, if anything, the first sector was a little bit weaker. But that’s only by eye, which can be a little bit confusing sometimes in the car because, with the speed, you have this yo-yo effect as well that is difficult to take everything out of it, because they were still quite far, like two seconds ahead.

“But my feeling was that we were, in particular, weaker in the first sector.”

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Despite Ferrari occupying a relatively distant fourth place after the first three races of the championship, having scored just 35 points from the first three race weekends, Leclerc clung to the positives he could take out of his Japanese weekend in that he felt he’d learned plenty about the SF-25 and its quirks.

“I learned plenty about the car this weekend. So that is the positive of the weekend, really,” he said.

“As much as we are disappointed with the fourth place, we should be happy of us maximising the result and we should be happy about the lessons learned this weekend.

“Friday was a really, really good day for that. I really went in quite extreme directions with an idea that I’ve had for two or three weeks – I wanted to try it, and it worked out.”

While Leclerc felt that Ferrari had maximised its potential, team boss Fred Vasseur felt there was room for improvement – but admitted that the deficit to the front was several tenths of a second.

“I don’t think that we maximised, but I think it’s true for everybody, including the others,” he said.

“The picture is that we are two to three tenths behind pole position yesterday, and perhaps two to three tenths behind today. It’s a good picture, and we have to work from there.”

This deficit isn’t track-specific, Leclerc feels, as he explained that he doesn’t expect the picture to be very different when F1 arrives in Bahrain next weekend.

“I think this is the pace, honestly, what we’ve shown this weekend is there’s not much more in the car, so I think that’s where we are,” he said.

Faced with the uphill task of trying to close down McLaren, Red Bull and, perhaps, Mercedes, Vasseur said Ferrari’s focus needs to remain on its own shortcomings at this point, rather than concentrating on its rivals.

“I didn’t spend the winter to have expectations from race one that we would be there or there, but just going to Australia to race and to try to get the best from what we have,” he said.

“We had exactly the same approach last year – we are able to come back after the first couple of races. We were six-tenths off on average, and we were able to come back during the season.

“We need to keep the same approach. The gap doesn’t matter, nor the results of today. We need to try to do a better job next week, to improve the potential and also the extraction of the potential of the car in its operation and potential.

“We have to improve everywhere. At least we took a step forward compared to last Sunday, at least on the operation, and we have to start from there. But it’s not the ideal start of the season, for sure, but it’s still a long one to go.”

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