Charles Leclerc rejects Ferrari claim after 'Lewis Hamilton hype'

Charles Leclerc has rejected claims that Ferrari were "over-confident" at the start of the 2025 F1 season, believing much of the expectation came from Lewis Hamilton's arrival.

Hamilton moved to Maranello for 2025 after 12 seasons at Mercedes, and the Scuderia was widely expected to mount a championship challenge, given it had finished just 14 points behind McLaren in the 2024 constructors' championship. 

However, heading into the Spanish GP weekend, which is round nine of the season, Ferrari is 177 points behind McLaren in the standings, compared to leading the Woking team by 68 points at the same stage in 2024. 

Had Ferrari not suffered a double disqualification at this season's Chinese Grand Prix, it would actually be second in the constructors' on 160 points, as the team has struggled to extract the maximum performance from the SF-25, with Hamilton struggling in particular.

Coming off the back of a pleasantly surprising strong performance in Monaco, where he finished in second place for the team's best result of the season, Leclerc denied the idea that Ferrari had been 'over-confident' coming into the season, instead pointing towards the 'hype' around Hamilton's bombshell move from Mercedes.

"I don't think we were over-confident, I think there was a lot of hype around the team at the beginning of the season," Leclerc told media, including RacingNews365. 

"But it was not really that we could control it, mostly because Lewis joining the team was a big thing for the F1 paddock, so there was a lot of talk about Ferrari, and lots of hopes as well.

"Maybe we will be at the level which we are not at the moment, and obviously the hopes were also within the team that we had gone a good job and wanted to be fighting for the championship - or at least to start the year where we ended up last year, but that didn't happen.

"But I don't think we were overly optimistic, we were just focusing our ourselves and as a matter of fact, we have not been good enough for this first part of the season. 

"But this year is this year, and next year is so different that I think we won't be running into the same issues. I'll be very surprised if that is the case because the car should be in such a different place next year.

"So if we don't resolve it this year, that doesn't mean we won't be starting on the right path next year."

"We are still fully focused on this season, it is extremely important to understand and to fix it as soon as possible."