Charles Leclerc made no secret of his disappointment after securing third place at the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix, using the moment to highlight the ongoing lift and coast challenges that continue to affect the Ferrari team.
After a solid qualifying run that put him on the front row, Leclerc lost out to Oscar Piastri’s McLaren at the first corner and never had a realistic chance to fight for the lead. Instead, he was forced to focus on managing his car’s systems, resulting in what he described as a lonely and unsatisfying drive.
“There weren’t very many key moments on my side,” Leclerc admitted to the press, including Total-Motorsport.com, after the race. “Obviously, the start, I wish I had done a bit of a better job to be completely alongside Lando.
“Maybe that would have changed a little bit for three or four laps. I don’t think we had the pace to stay there in front. Basically, from Turn 1 to the end, it was a very boring race. I was on my own, just trying to manage quite a few issues that we had on our side.
“Let’s not call them issues, but we’ve got to do some management in the situation we’re in at the moment. I won’t go into the detail, but the lift and coast was a little bit frustrating.”
Ferrari forced to compromise with lift and coast strategy
Both Leclerc and teammate Lewis Hamilton received persistent instructions from the pit wall to lift and coast throughout the Austrian GP. This strategy, designed to avoid excessive plank wear and prevent another costly disqualification like the one at the Chinese Grand Prix, forced both drivers to sacrifice outright pace and focus on finishing the race cleanly.
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“We paid a bit of the price for it on the first stint, but then the second and last stint were a bit more positive, which was good. But there weren’t many key moments apart from the start,” Leclerc continued. The inability to push flat out left the Ferrari duo well behind the pace-setting McLarens, and out of reach of a true challenge for victory.
Despite these limitations, Ferrari introduced a significant new floor upgrade at the Red Bull Ring, and Leclerc was quick to praise the team’s efforts: “And I think it helped us to be on the podium today. The team has done an incredible job at pushing to try and get them as early as possible.
“I know that they are still pushing extremely hard to have other upgrades as soon as possible, which I hope will make another difference and will help us to be a bit closer to McLaren, to Red Bull in their good days, or to Mercedes even in their good days. So, yeah, we are pushing hard, and I hope that we see the result as soon as possible.”
Leclerc’s honest appraisal of his “boring” race underlines the challenge still facing Ferrari as they look to bridge the gap to the top teams in 2025. For now, the team’s upgrades have at least delivered a step forward, but there’s no question that both drivers and fans are eager for a bigger leap.
