Leclerc getting a handle on the Ferrari SF25, Hamilton not. Why?
F1 NewsSaturday, 19 April 2025 at 07:58
Only Lewis Hamilton could have dug as deep as he did to win the Sprint Race in China, but since then – and even before – it has been clear that the seven-time Formula 1 World Champion is not comfortable with his new ride.
Of late, Hamilton has worn his heart on his sleeve, giving his fans a reality check to temper expectations while revealing his struggles in unfamiliar territory. After 20 years of racing in Mercedes-style, he is now going racing Ferrari-style. Driving a car that is foreign to him is proving to be a challenge.
This was illustrated by Friday's times on the first day of free practice for the 2025 Saudi Grand Prix. In a somewhat meaningless FP1 session, in terms of timing but with conditions the same for all, Hamilton finished P8 with a best effort of 1:29.815.
In the #16 Ferrari, Charles Leclerc was P3 at the end of the hour, half a second quicker than teammate Hamilton. The gap grew to 0.622s in FP2, Leclerc ending the night P4 with Hamilton out of the top ten in P13.
Which begs the question: do Ferrari prioritise Leclerc, as he is clearly faster than Hamilton at this stage, or do they invest time in making their new driver comfortable?
Grand Prix winner, racing driver and pundit Juan Pablo Montoya is wary of what steps Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur will take to address the Hamilton–Leclerc dilemma.
Do Ferrari invest time in making Leclerc faster or improve the car to suit Hamilton?
Montoya shared his views with the Plejmo media team on our behalf: "Lewis is beating himself up because he's not performing, but he's not comfortable. I think everybody's working hard to make him comfortable. But the consequence of that is that if they really focus on making Lewis comfortable, they're going to have issues with Charles in the long term.
"Look at Max. Every time Max is really, really quick, the teammate is miles away. When the teammate is close, they're not that quick. They're not as competitive.
"Look at Checo. Two years ago, when Checo started the season so well, people thought the two drivers would be fighting it out for the championship. But when they finally made the car good enough for what Max wanted, Checo couldn't drive it.
"I think Ferrari might go through the same thing. As they develop the car for Lewis, to make him comfortable, all those things will compromise Charles's performance. So that's going to be interesting – to see how far Ferrari is going to go out of the way to make Lewis comfortable.”
Montoya: Charles has a great opportunity to learn from Lewis
Montoya also sees how some of Hamilton's 'magic' can rub off on Leclerc: "I think Charles has a great opportunity to learn from Lewis. Even if he gets close to Lewis, I think he could learn a lot from Lewis.
"Charles does a really good job already, but I think he could learn from Lewis a lot. And I think if he is smart about it, he can end up with a Ferrari that can actually win championships.”
Montoya also admitted a sense of déjà vu when watching Hamilton come to terms with his new team and a Ferrari very different to his Mercedes: “I really thought Ferrari would have something coming into this season. We were all excited to see how much effort Ferrari put into having Lewis in the car.
"We were all expecting to see a magical Ferrari this year and it hasn't happened. You look at Lewis in Australia – he was so uncomfortable. He was miserable in that car. It happened to me when I went to McLaren.
"At the beginning, I couldn't drive it. I was so miserable driving that car and you look like an idiot, you look slow. Everybody thinks you’ve forgotten how to drive. I just couldn’t freaking drive the car. It was so difficult. But Kimi Raikkonen was happy with it.
"Lewis doesn't want to whine about it and then people think he is just not fast enough. Lewis is still very fast, but the problem is he is not happy in the car. That's where Ferrari needs to go – help him with whatever he needs and focus."
Montoya: Ferrari does need to listen to Lewis
The Colombian continued: "At the end of the day, Lewis has been with teams that win championships. He knows what the car needs to win championships. So, Ferrari does need to listen to Lewis and make the car better for what Lewis wants.
"If they do that, they have a much better all-round car that is going to be more competitive. Once they do that, then you're going to end up with a Lewis maybe quicker than Charles – because he’s going to be more comfortable in the car and happier with the package," ventured Montoya.
Summing up his Friday in Jeddah, Hamilton said in the Ferrari report: "It was a challenging day. We’re still chasing the right balance between the front and rear axles, and I’m struggling a bit with consistency across the lap at this stage. There’s work to do, but the team’s fully focused and we’ll keep pushing to find the improvements we need."
Leclerc agreed: "We are missing a bit of pace compared to the cars in front of us, but if we put everything together, it should be a close qualifying. We all seem to be quite close, with McLaren a step ahead, but we will focus on ourselves and see what we can extract for Saturday."
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