Another race weekend, another masterclass in snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for Ferrari. This time, it was Charles Leclerc. The 2025 Las Vegas GP qualifying served as the backdrop for the team’s ongoing tragicomedy. The culprit? A bit of water. Yes, the same stuff that comes out of your tap apparently turns a multi-million dollar Formula 1 car into a shopping cart with a wonky wheel.
Leclerc, Ferrari’s resident sufferer-in-chief, couldn’t hide his frustration after a dismal qualifying session that saw him land in ninth. On a track that should have played to the Ferrari’s strengths, the wet conditions exposed a problem that has plagued the team for years. It’s a familiar story, and frankly, one that’s getting a little old.
Leclerc Laments a Problem as Old as His Ferrari Career
After what must have felt like an eternity wrestling his car around the slippery Las Vegas streets, Leclerc was candid. When asked if he was surprised by the team’s struggles, his response was a resounding, and somewhat depressing, “Unfortunately, yes.” It turns out, this isn’t a new issue. It’s a ghost that’s been haunting him since he first pulled on the iconic red overalls in 2019.
“Our car has been… Unfortunately, since I’m in Ferrari that we are struggling massively in the wet, we don’t quite find the solution,” Leclerc confessed, the exasperation practically dripping from his words. “It’s not a fault that we are not trying because we’ve been trying like crazy, but it just doesn’t work.”
You can almost hear the sigh. For a driver whose wet-weather driving was a calling card in his junior career, this must feel like a particularly cruel joke. The car just won’t cooperate. The tires don’t heat up, the grip vanishes, and the driver is left to slide around, praying for a miracle that never comes. We saw it at Silverstone in 2024, Zandvoort in 2023… pick a wet race, any wet race, and you’ll likely find a Ferrari struggling.
“Unbelievably Difficult to Drive”
It’s not just Leclerc feeling the pain. He pointed out that both his current teammate, Lewis Hamilton, and former teammate Carlos Sainz, who have experience with other cars, can attest to how uniquely terrible the Ferrari becomes when it rains. It’s a shared sentiment within the team, a known weakness that continues to stump the engineers at Maranello.
Leclerc shut down theories that it’s just a simple tire warm-up issue. “I don’t think it’s only that because we’ve been trying things on the tyre warm-up as well in the past and it didn’t work, so it’s frustrating.”
He went on to describe the feeling from the cockpit, stating it’s “unbelievably difficult to drive.” He knows what he needs to do to be faster, but the car simply refuses to respond. It’s like trying to reason with a cat—pointless and you’ll probably just get scratched.
The race itself wasn’t much better. A bungled pitstop cost him 20 seconds, and he spent the rest of the Grand Prix fighting his way back, only to get stuck in a DRS train. He ultimately crossed the line in sixth, a result he felt was the absolute maximum possible. A post-race disqualification for the McLarens bumped him up to fourth, but that felt more like a lucky break than a deserved result. The underlying confusion about team strategy and a general lack of pace left Leclerc and the fans scratching their heads. Again.
With Ferrari CEO John Elkann already making pointed comments about the team’s performance, the pressure is mounting. As Ferrari fights to claw back second in the constructors’ championship, this persistent, almost comical inability to perform in the wet is a liability they can’t afford. For Leclerc, it’s another season of “what ifs” and “if onlys,” leaving everyone to wonder when, or if, Ferrari will ever learn to dance in the rain.
