Charles Leclerc admits he must take an ‘extreme’ risk even with Ferrari’s Belgian Grand Prix upgrade

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Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc has arrived for the Belgian Grand Prix on the back of his worst finish of the 2025 Formula 1 season, having only managed P14 in the British GP.

Silverstone saw the 27-year-old fail to earn a point for just the second time this term and for the first time when he was classified in the final results. Leclerc was disqualified from April’s Chinese Grand Prix after he came home P5 as he was 1kg under the 800kg minimum weight.

The Monegasque has otherwise taken the chequered flag during every round of the 2025 F1 season so far in the top 10. Leclerc also made the podium in three of the four rounds prior to the British GP after sealing P2 on home soil in Monaco before taking P3 in Spain and Austria.

But Leclerc finished the British GP in P14 due to his poor strategy, having stopped before the race started to switch to the medium C3 compound dry tyres. He also pitted again on Lap 10 of 52 to go back onto the intermediate rubber, and stopped again for L42 for the C4 softs.

Charles Leclerc doubts Ferrari’s rear suspension upgrade will stop him needing ‘extreme’ set-ups

Now, Leclerc will hope to bounce back with Ferrari introducing a rear suspension upgrade at the Belgian GP. The Scuderia have moved the mounting point for the front wishbone to the gearbox in a bid to lower the ride height of the SF-25 and to improve the car’s predictability.

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Ferrari have likely changed the dampers with their rear suspension update at the Belgian GP to maximise the efficiency of their new package, as well, this weekend. But Leclerc admits it is unlikely to mean he does not have to adopt ‘extreme’ set-ups to try and find performance.

Leclerc outlined, via quotes by RacingNews365: “I can find the confidence if I set up the car in a different way. So, if I need confidence, I’ll go for that. But I prefer to go for performance, rather than confidence.

“It doesn’t always pay off, and I think we’ve seen it at [the] last race weekend in Silverstone where, obviously, I had my struggles, which were pretty big in the wet. I know this is the risk of running such an extreme set-up.

“I don’t think this will improve with that [rear suspension upgrade] because we still need to set up the car in a relatively similar position in order to extract the maximum out of it. But I’m happy to follow that path.”

Ferrari’s efforts to perfect Charles Leclerc’s Spa set-up are restricted by the F1 Sprint format.

Ferrari ran a filming day at Mugello to establish a reference for their rear suspension update in the break between the British GP and Belgian GP, with Spa also staging the third F1 Sprint of the season this weekend. Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton both drove 100km with the update.

But Leclerc did not feel a big difference from Ferrari’s rear suspension upgrade at Mugello to fuel his fear that it will not prevent the Monegasque from requiring ‘extreme’ set-ups to find performance. Leclerc is concerned about the threat of rain at Spa with the schedule, as well.

F1 Sprint weekends only offer one practice session prior to Sprint Qualifying, which will limit what Ferrari can do to perfect Leclerc’s set-up at Spa. So, while Hamilton is quite happy with Ferrari’s rear suspension upgrade’s impact, its full impact might not be seen this weekend.