“We are just P nowhere at the moment,” Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc muttered disconsolately into a waiting Sky Sports F1 microphone after qualifying 11th for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
Team-mate Lewis Hamilton was 12th and, if the gap between them was more slender than it has been in recent outings, the fact remains that this was Ferrari’s most abject qualifying performance ever at Imola. Both cars were eliminated in Q2, the first time the team has failed to crack the top 10 at this venue since it first appeared on the F1 calendar in 1980 as a substitute for Monza, hosting the Italian Grand Prix.
Gilles Villeneuve may have derided the lumpen 1981 Ferrari 126CK as “a big red Cadillac” but he still put it on pole here.
Indeed, this weekend may have provided the Scuderia’s biggest ‘WTF moment’ at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari since Alain Prost slithered off at Rivazza on the formation lap of the 1991 San Marino GP and failed to make the start.
Leclerc made his frustrations with the SF-25 itself, and the team’s inability to find solutions, very clear: “There’s not enough performance in the car and I keep repeating myself.
“There’s just not the potential that we hope [for in] this car at the moment and we need to be better.”
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
Photo by: Lars Baron / Motorsport Images via Getty Images
Both Ferrari drivers complained of brake issues during Friday practice. But while these appear to have been mitigated on Saturday, the SF-25 clearly hit its performance ceiling in terms of this track configuration and its ability to work the tyres.
On their crucial Q2 laps, both Ferrari drivers shipped time relative to rivals in the slower corners. Leclerc was noticeably scruffy at the exit of the Variante Alta as he tried to hustle the car after it had understeered at the entry.
Comparing the data from their final Q2 laps with the Williams of Alex Albon, who displaced Leclerc from P10, reveals the Ferraris were considerably slower at the apex of the slower corners – 12km/h at the Villeneuve right-hander, for instance. This was where the lap time leaked away despite the Italian cars having a fractional top-speed advantage.
“I feel super gutted, devastated that we weren’t able to get through,” said Hamilton.
“I really feel like we’ve made so many positive steps through the weekend. The car was generally feeling better.
“The brakes were better today. The balance was really nice.
“In Q2, run one felt decent. And then when we put the new tyres on, for some reason, it just didn’t have any more grip. I couldn’t go any faster.
“And you see everyone else… they clearly managed to switch the tyres on.”
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photo by: Mark Thompson – Getty Images
Hamilton’s second Q2 run was actually slower than his first. With the SF-25, one of Ferrari’s priorities was to continue the work done through last season on the SF-24 to produce a car which was more benign to its tyres and therefore faster over a race distance.
It is always possible to go too far in the other direction but failing to ‘switch on’ the softest tyres in Pirelli’s portfolio when others appear able to do so will be highly concerning. Especially since the main difficulty the rest of the grid experienced on this compound was managing it over a single lap to avoid exhausting its performance capacity too quickly.
Aston Martin sent its drivers out on mediums and Fernando Alonso claimed fifth on the grid, with Lance Stroll eighth, but Leclerc said “it wasn’t on the cards for us” and “they are doing really good lap times anyway”.
Ferrari has an upgrade coming for the Spanish Grand Prix in two weeks but, as Leclerc says, “it has to be a freaking good upgrade if we want it to be a turning point”. The team’s problem over the past several seasons is that upgrade packages have often not been as effective as hoped, or have altered the car’s behaviour in a way which hasn’t benefited both drivers.
Either way, Ferrari appears to have found its ceiling.
“I can fight as much as I want,” summed up Leclerc.
“I cannot [perform] miracles. This is what there is in the car.”
Head here to stay up to speed with the latest F1 Imola Grand Prix news, expert analysis, photos and videos.
