Leclerc admits Red Bull and McLaren upgrades have left Ferrari scrambling for pace

Charles Leclerc finished fourth at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku after admitting that Ferrari has fallen behind both Red Bull and McLaren following a weekend in which its rivals arrived with significant upgrade packages and the Scuderia made no changes to its car.

Leclerc had qualified on the front row, edging McLaren’s Oscar Piastri by just 0.001 seconds and Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar by 0.137s in Q3. But the race told a different story. He slipped to fifth by lap four and only recovered to fourth after Piastri ran deep into Turn 1 late on, with Kimi Antonelli — who had started 16th following a qualifying crash — also out of contention for a higher finish.

“It was a bit of a boring race for us,” Leclerc said. “Unfortunately, we had a bad start, which was probably the only thing we could have done much better today. After that, we just had no pace. Compared to the Red Bull, it was very difficult to defend because in the straight line we are too slow. We are just struggling with raw pace at the moment.”

Both McLaren and Red Bull brought focused aerodynamic upgrades to Baku. McLaren’s package covered the sidepods, floor, diffuser, engine cover, rear suspension and rear wing, while Red Bull’s included new mirrors, halo and updates to the sidepods, floor and diffuser. Ferrari, by contrast, ran its SF-26 unchanged.

The scale of Red Bull’s improvement was underlined by Max Verstappen, who challenged George Russell for victory despite having qualified 1.6 seconds off the pace, while Hadjar had been a full second slower than the Mercedes in Q3.

Team-mate Lewis Hamilton was less forthcoming when asked whether Ferrari now had the fourth-fastest car. “What’s the importance of that?” the seven-time world champion replied, before adding that he does not “really think about anybody else” when pressed on how unexpected Red Bull’s race pace had been.

Leclerc acknowledged that Baku’s characteristics do not play to Ferrari’s strengths, but was clear that the performance deficit ran deeper than circuit fit. “McLaren and Red Bull did a step forward with the upgrades they are bringing,” he said. “They have grown recently, they did a step forward that we didn’t do. And we must react, because losing some pace now is going to be very difficult to take it back.”

Ferrari does have updates in the pipeline, Leclerc indicated, though he was cautious about their impact. “Whether it’s going to be enough to close the gap — not knowing what the others have in store as well — is another matter. But surely, we’ve got a few things that should help us do some steps forward.” Development headroom remains constrained by the budget cap and aerodynamic testing restrictions.