Leclerc sends defiant title message as Hamilton joins Ferrari

Charles Leclerc says he feels “ready” to fight for the F1 drivers’ title in 2025 if Ferrari provides a championship-level car.

The 27-year-old will be partnered at Maranello by Lewis Hamilton for the next two seasons. After winning seven drivers’ titles, the Briton will prove a formidable challenge.

Nevertheless, Leclerc maintains that he – and the Italian squad – is up to the task, arguing that he is “fully confident” Ferrari will be the next team to take the title away from Max Verstappen and Red Bull.

The eight-time grand prix winner finished the 2024 F1 season third in the standings, behind the Dutchman and McLaren’s Lando Norris.

At 81 points adrift, Verstappen likely would have remained out of Leclerc’s reach even if Ferrari had not suffered a disastrous mid-year slump in form off the back of its failed Spanish Grand Prix upgrade package.

However, Norris—who finished just 18 points ahead—was catchable. Leclerc is acutely aware of the necessity of maintaining the required level of performance over the duration of the campaign.

“I feel like I’m ready for the championship,” the Monégasque driver told RacingNews365 in an exclusive interview at the end of last season. “We [Ferrari] just need a car that, throughout the season, is capable of doing that.

“I’m fully confident that the next team to be able to do that and to beat Red Bull, especially, for the championship will be us.”

Leclerc highlights key area of improvement

Although third was a step up from the fifth-place he secured in 2023, it was not the heights he achieved the year prior, when he was runner-up to Verstappen. However, after a strong start, it proved a painful campaign – for both Leclerc and Ferrari.

A litany of mistakes and missed opportunities saw him limp home 146 points behind the Red Bull driver, having led by 46 after the third round of the year in Australia.

Able to better maximise on points available and understand where the limit is, Leclerc has come a long way since that campaign.

When it was put to him that he had matured as a driver and asked whether he felt he had improved from that point, the 27-year-old agreed.

“I did [improve],” he said, reflecting on the past two seasons. “I improved in the way that I accept more when a weekend is not going exactly the way I want.

“Whereas in the past, if things were not going exactly the way I want, if the car was not exactly the way I wanted, I was trying to find something within the car that was not there, and that was pushing me to do mistakes.

“That was pushing me also sometimes to do something really good when things were not there, but I felt like it was biting [me] more than it will reward me – and on that, I improved a lot.

“I felt like I maximised points a lot more over the course of the season, but that doesn’t mean that I will never cross that line again.

“It’s always a game of trying to get as close as possible to limit without ever stepping on it, but I feel like I’ve done a step forward on that, yes.”