Charles Leclerc told he’s been dealing with a ‘serious handicap’ at Ferrari this season

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Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc has been left frustrated this season despite sitting 3^rd in the Drivers’ Championship.

Charles Leclerc fought off teammate Carlos Sainz to be the driver Ferrari retained when Lewis Hamilton made himself available for the 2025 season.

At the start of the season, Sainz appeared to have the upper hand on the Monegasque driver and won in Australia to put himself firmly on the market in his search for a new race seat.

However, Leclerc has overtaken Sainz in the standings and his victory at his home race in Monaco was expected to be the catalyst for the rest of his season.

Unfortunately, that’s not been the case and the update package Ferrari delivered in Spain hasn’t worked as expected.

Leclerc’s also had some bad luck in that time, suffering from a technical issue in Canada before being hit going into the opening corner in Austria.

Writing in his column for Formule1.nl, former F1 driver Tim Coronel has been assessing Leclerc’s season.

He gave the 26-year-old a 6.9 rating but admits that many of the issues Leclerc has dealt with have been out of his control.

Coronel also believes that Leclerc’s lack of a race engineer he can rely on is proving to be a ‘serious handicap’.

It’s been said that Leclerc’s relationship with new engineer Bryan Bozzi isn’t working after he replaced Xavi Marcos earlier in the campaign.

Ferrari will want to deal with the problem sooner rather than later but getting the car right and fully understanding their upgrade packages is arguably even more important.

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Charles Leclerc suffering from ‘serious handicap’ at Ferrari due to race engineer – Coronel

Reflecting on Leclerc’s season so far, Coronel said: “He won the Monaco GP, his home race, but mainly because you can’t overtake anywhere there. But that’s where it will end.

“The car isn’t working, but there’s more going on at Ferrari. He lacks an engineer he can rely on, which is a serious handicap.

“With Leclerc, you can just see that he doesn’t have the tools to get it all done.

“It’s actually quite simple: in Formula 1 too, the chain breaks at the weakest link. He himself is certainly not the weakest link and he’s upset about the situation which is logical.

“On the other hand, you still have to get the most out of it. Max can maximize at Red Bull and his car isn’t top either.”

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about Scuderia Ferrari from team principal to factory

British Grand Prix struggles highlight Charles Leclerc’s issues this season

The lack of clear communication between Leclerc and Bozzi was epitomised by the Monegasque’s pointless finish at the British Grand Prix in Silverstone.

Changeable conditions made the timing of moving from slick to intermediate tyres essential to success and unfortunately, Leclerc made the wrong call thanks to some poorly worded messages from his team.

Leclerc was told that heavier rain was imminent and decided to move onto inters much sooner than any other driver running in the points.

However, he was quickly running much more slowly than his rivals and along with Sergio Perez and Zhou Guanyu knew after just a few laps that their races were ruined.

Leclerc seemed broken after Silverstone but results have improved since then.

His 4^th-place finish in Hungary was very impressive and he was promoted onto the podium at Spa when George Russell was disqualified.

Oscar Piastri and Sainz will both fancy their chances of overtaking Leclerc in the Drivers’ Championship before the end of the season.

But Leclerc will want to be in the strongest position possible before Hamilton arrives and proves to be his toughest challenger yet.