Zak Brown in awe of ‘awesome’ thing Charles Leclerc can do but worries Ferrari hold him back

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Ferrari have failed to fulfil their target of fighting McLaren to win the 2025 drivers’ and constructors’ titles, but Charles Leclerc has continued to amaze Zak Brown this term.

The Scuderia entered the 2025 F1 season with their sights set on finally ending their lengthy title droughts. Ferrari have not won the F1 drivers’ championship since with Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, and last lifted a constructors’ title in 2008 but fell 14 points shy of McLaren in 2024.

Lewis Hamilton moving to Maranello to partner with Leclerc handed Ferrari more belief that 2025 could be their year. Yet, while the pride of Italy hit the summer break ranking second in the teams’ standings, they trail leaders McLaren by 299 points after 14 out of the 24 rounds.

Leclerc and Hamilton are also only fifth and sixth in the drivers’ standings, with 133 and 175-point deficits to McLaren’s Oscar Piastri. Additionally, Leclerc took Ferrari’s first pole position of 2025 in Hungary during round 14, and the Scuderia are also still without a Grand Prix win.

McLaren CEO Zak Brown thinks Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc is ‘awesome’ in qualifying

Ferrari saw Leclerc earn his 27th career pole position at the Hungarian Grand Prix, as the 27-year-old capitalised on the cooler conditions in Q3 to beat McLaren drivers Piastri and Lando Norris by just 0.026 and 0.041 seconds. Yet Leclerc could only finish the Hungarian GP in P4.

READ MORE: Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc’s life outside F1 from net worth to girlfriend

The Hungarian GP thus marked the 22nd time that Leclerc has failed to convert a pole into a race win, giving the Monegasque a conversion rate of only 18.51%. But McLaren CEO Brown thinks Leclerc’s pole-to-win conversion rate shows Ferrari have not gifted him a winning car.

Brown told RACER: “There’s another stat out there from [Leclerc], who I’m a big fan of, who’s not won that many races from pole, and I don’t think that’s anything on him.

“I think that’s how awesome he is over a lap, and maybe can carry a car over a lap that doesn’t have the ultimate race pace. So, that’s not intended to be disparaging of him at all. I think he’s a huge talent.”

Ferrari have cost Charles Leclerc 11 chances to win a Grand Prix from pole position

Leclerc scored his first pole position at the 2019 Bahrain GP during his first season at Ferrari, but he could not turn a pole into a win until his third P1 start at the 2019 Belgian GP. He has also won from pole in Italy in 2019, in Bahrain and Australia in 2022 and in Monaco in 2024.

But Leclerc grew irate with Ferrari during the 2025 Hungarian GP, as a potential win slipped through his fingers after the Scuderia changed his engine mode and even increased his tyre pressures to avoid the risk of the Monegasque developing excessive wear on his floor plank.

Ferrari sporting director Diego Loverno rushed to stop Leclerc from exploding in Hungary, as well, having seen a car issue cost him a shot at a ninth Grand Prix win. Reliability issues have cost Leclerc five times from pole, plus five times through Ferrari lacking race pace and once owing to a strategic error. Leclerc even crashed while leading the 2022 French GP from pole.