There’s a version of Ferrari’s recent history where the machinery was the problem. Underpowered units, aerodynamic concepts that didn’t survive contact with rival upgrades, a wind tunnel correlation issue that plagued them for the better part of two seasons. Those were real problems, and they deserve acknowledgment.
But the SF-25 is, by most observable measures, a competitive car. Leclerc has put it on the front row with enough regularity this season to dispel any serious argument that Ferrari is fundamentally uncompetitive. The car is there. The pace is real.
What keeps happening in the races is something different - and it’s been happening long enough that blaming circumstance is no longer credible.
The Pattern Is Too Consistent to Be Bad Luck
Ferrari’s strategic calls under pressure follow a recognizable shape: they react to what rivals do rather than committing to a plan of their own, and when the situation becomes genuinely ambiguous - the kind of moment where teams win or lose championships - they split the difference. Covering Leclerc while leaving Sainz exposed, or vice versa, so that neither driver gets a clean race. Calling an early stop that looks aggressive on paper but is actually defensive, then getting undercut anyway because the tire delta wasn’t what they expected.
McLaren, by contrast, have shown this season that you can coordinate a two-car strategy without sacrificing either driver to a hedge. It’s not that Ferrari lacks the data - every team on the grid has the same timing screens, the same tire degradation models. It’s that Ferrari consistently lacks the conviction to act on what the data says before the window closes.
The Leclerc Problem
Leclerc is 28. He’s in what should be the peak years of a career that has shown, at various moments, that he belongs in any conversation about the best drivers on the grid. The contract situation - whatever it looks like internally - is almost secondary to the simpler fact that a driver of his ability deserves strategic support that matches his pace.
That’s not a shot at Ferrari as an institution. It’s just the plainest way to say that the current arrangement is wasting something finite.
Whether they fix it before his patience runs out is the question the Scuderia has been very good at not answering directly.