Charles Leclerc wasn’t kept abreast of the pace of McLaren during the 2025 Australian Grand Prix, due to how far ahead they were.

Ferrari may have come into F1 2025 expecting to be in the battle for victories but were nowhere near the pace of McLaren at the Australian Grand Prix.

Charles Leclerc: My engineer didn’t even tell me about McLaren

With Ferrari predicted by many in the paddock to be the fourth-quickest team at the start of the season, this came to fruition in Melbourne as McLaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes all appeared to have the upper hand over the Scuderia.

Leclerc qualified in seventh on Saturday, just ahead of his new teammate Lewis Hamilton, and neither were able to get in the mix to challenge for podiums or the race victory as the two McLarens sprinted away from the field with only Max Verstappen proving a foil for them in his Red Bull.

After a strategic gamble to stay on dry tyres backfired on Ferrari, Leclerc ended up 20 seconds behind race winner Lando Norris at the chequered flag and looked set to finish closer to a minute behind had the race not been interrupted by the Safety Car.

Speaking to the media afterward, Leclerc revealed that Ferrari’s race was not with McLaren – to the point where his engineer Bryan Bozzi didn’t even keep him informed of how they were doing up ahead.

“McLaren were incredibly quick today,” he said.

“To be completely honest, I know that they are incredibly quick, because I’ve heard they are incredibly quick, but my engineer didn’t even tell me once the lap times of McLaren, I think they were too far ahead.

“So I don’t exactly know whether it’s a second, a second and a half, or two. I hope not two, but I’ve heard some quite impressive numbers, so I’ll go back and look into it and try to understand where we are losing the most compared to them.”

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Paddock chatter had placed Ferrari as the fourth-quickest team heading into the season, with rival teams expressing some mystification as to why the Scuderia had opted to completely overhaul their very competitive SF-24 over the winter – a big change being a move to pull-rod suspension in place of push-rod, a move which will take Ferrari time to unlock the potential of.

Putting a brave face on things, Leclerc said it was clear McLaren and Red Bull were a clear step ahead but Mercedes remained in sight.

“We were definitely very off in terms of pace compared to the McLarens and Max,” he said.

“So we’ll look into it, but, yes, for sure, we were struggling today.

“We were pretty similar to the Mercedes in front, but that was it. Then, McLaren and Red Bull were so much faster. So there’s a lot of work to be done.”

With the intermediates falling away from Ferrari early in the stint, Leclerc said it’s an ongoing missing piece in Ferrari’s armoury.

“Why, especially in those conditions [damp], I don’t know yet,” he said, “but it’s been a weakness that we’ve had for quite a few years.

“I think we’ve been quite up and down whenever it was raining, and we’ve got to work on that. ”

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