Charles Leclerc reflects on P4 in Bahrain as he concedes Ferrari ‘need many baby steps’ to get ‘where we want’

Charles Leclerc feels Ferrari have taken a “baby step” forward at the Bahrain Grand Prix, following his P4 finish, but admits many more steps are needed for the team to be “where we want”.

Leclerc found himself locked in a fight for what would have been a maiden podium of the 2025 season, only to lose third to a hard charging Lando Norris in a thrilling scrap across the final laps. As a result, Leclerc had to settle for fourth, having started from the front row of the grid.

Ferrari introduced a significant raft of upgrades to its car for this weekend, including a new floor, in a bid to close the gap to the front of the grid. Leclerc believes progress has been made but the Monegasque also explained that the Bahrain International Circuit wasn’t the ideal venue to see the upgrades’ true potential.

“A baby step [forward] but we need many baby steps before getting to where we want," said Leclerc after the race.

BAHRAIN, BAHRAIN - APRIL 13: Charles Leclerc of Monaco driving the (16) Scuderia Ferrari SF-25 — Leclerc came home in fourth after starting on the front row of the grid in Bahrain

“As I said at the beginning of the weekend we need to be cautious. We brought that upgrade here and this is not the best track to extract the maximum out of that upgrade and I’m sure that next week we will be extracting a little bit more performance out of this upgrade.”

Reflecting on his race, Leclerc felt he’d done “everything” in his quest to claim a first podium of the year.

HIGHLIGHTS: Catch up on Piastri’s stellar run to victory at the Bahrain Grand Prix

Through the Grand Prix, Leclerc appeared to question a two-stop pit strategy but was ultimately glad the original plan was carried out following the deployment of the Safety Car on lap 32.

“I’m a bit disappointed, at the end of the day we did everything,” he added. "The start was very tricky with the medium [tyre], we lost a lot of places and then we had to be patient.

‘The pace is just not good enough’ – Leclerc ‘disappointed’ with P4

“We went a bit longer and then it started to pay off, and then there was a Safety Car which kind of re-zeroed everything and then on the hard [tyre] we were struggling. It is a shame we lost out on the podium but I felt this was the best we could do today.

"It is disappointing because when you have so much fight towards the end, and you are fighting for a first podium of the season, and the pace is just not good enough to achieve that, so I hope that soon we will have a car in order to get back on it.

“There were different strategies that we were speaking of and one of those was the one-stop but it was definitely brave and I’m happy we didn’t do that in the end because that would have been very difficult with the Safety Car later on.”