Fred Vasseur has offered his take on whether Ferrari can win another race before the end of F1 2025, following Charles Leclerc suggesting it won\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n
Charles Leclerc led the first half of the Hungarian Grand Prix, but a mysterious loss of pace in the second half led to him falling out of the podium places.<\/p>\n
Charles Leclerc: Ferrari knew this was the \u2018one opportunity\u2019<\/p>\n
In a year that has been dominated by McLaren\u2019s MCL39 as Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri have won all but three of the 14 Grands Prix so far in F1 2025, Ferrari appeared to take a step forward across the Belgian and Hungarian double-header.<\/p>\n
Following on from finishing third in Belgium, holding off Max Verstappen\u2019s Red Bull throughout, Leclerc took pole position in Budapest and led convincingly for the first half of the race.<\/p>\n
At a track where overtaking comes at a premium due to its tight and twisty nature, Leclerc looked in control of the race, only to suffer a mysterious drop-off in pace after his final pitstop.<\/p>\n
Lapping some two seconds of a lap slower, Leclerc fell behind both McLaren drivers and was also overtaken by Mercedes\u2019 George Russell to finish a disappointed fourth place.<\/p>\n
While the exact details of the pace loss haven\u2019t been detailed by Ferrari<\/a>, hints from team boss Fred Vasseur are that it was linked to a chassis issue, while speculated theories offered by some pundits, as well as Russell, have suggested Ferrari needed to raise its ride height by way of increased tyre pressures in the final stint.<\/p>\n Ferrari is the only team amongst the top four yet to win a race this year and, speaking after the chequered flag in Hungary, Leclerc said he is unsure whether Ferrari has the car to challenge McLaren for a victory in the final 10 race weekends of the year, with Hungary perhaps representing the Scuderia\u2019s best chance of a win this year.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure. I don\u2019t think so,\u201d Leclerc said of his chances between now and the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in December.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they [McLaren] are the strongest team out there, and even today, they were very, very fast.<\/p>\n \u201cOn a track like this, what gave me hope of winning is that we were starting first, and with the dirty air, it\u2019s a struggle to get past. I think Oscar [Piastri] probably had a bit more pace than me, but couldn\u2019t overtake.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think we are going into the second half of the season thinking that we can win anywhere.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what makes the frustration even bigger, because we knew that this was one opportunity probably over the season and we had to take it, but unfortunately, with this issue, we couldn\u2019t do much.\u201d<\/p>\n F1 2025: The season\u2019s winners and losers<\/p>\n \ud83d\udc49\u00a0The results of the F1 2025 championship <\/a><\/p>\n