Leclerc, furious: Ferrari “embarrassing” in Las Vegas qualy

Leclerc: Calls Ferrari’s Las Vegas Qualifying “Embarrassing”

Charles Leclerc expressed his disappointment after the qualifying session of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, calling Ferrari’s performance “embarrassing” and pointing out the team’s persistent problems in wet conditions since his arrival. Leclerc managed to qualify in ninth position for Saturday’s race. His teammate, Lewis Hamilton, finished in last position, which seems to be Ferrari’s last chance to avoid a winless season in 2025. This week, the team’s star drivers downplayed recent criticism from Ferrari president John Elkann, who had urged the pair to “focus on driving and talking less” and improve their performance.

My god, embarrassing, f—ing embarrassing. F—ing hell, I don’t understand how we can be so out of rhythm… There’s no grip, zero f—ing grip.

Charles Leclerc

The Friday session began with heavy rain, forcing teams to use extreme rain tires, something uncommon in F1’s recent past. In subsequent statements, Leclerc explained that his frustration with Ferrari’s performance in wet conditions dates back to his arrival at the team in 2019. Leclerc commented that the team has had difficulties finding grip in these types of conditions. “It’s very frustrating because it has probably been my greatest strength in the lower categories and then…” “We’re doing something wrong. I have no idea what it is, because we’ve turned the car upside down. We’ve had Lewis and, obviously, Carlos before [from] other teams that could tell us the feeling they had with the other cars. It’s extremely difficult to find grip with our car. Very, very unpredictable with our car, which makes us make a lot of mistakes. It’s not that we don’t try because as a team we’ve tried absolutely everything. For some reason, we still haven’t found our way.” Hamilton, considered an expert in wet conditions, also struggled from the start, being eliminated in the first session. “The car felt great in FP3, and honestly I thought it was going to go well. Yes, I was very, very excited,” said Hamilton. “I thought we would finally have a good day, but it wasn’t like that.”