Charles Leclerc cautions Ferrari against ‘high expectations’ after early US GP pace

By Vancouver Television Sports Desk

Charles Leclerc urged Ferrari not to overreact to early pace at the United States Grand Prix, describing the feeling in the car as positive but stressing that it is “only Friday.” After an impressive showing in Free Practice, the Monegasque said the team needs to be careful about carrying “high expectations” into the rest of the weekend, even after topping the times in FP1 and FP2 at Circuit of The Americas.

Leclerc’s warning centered on how Ferrari’s technical changes are behaving in terms of lap-time gain. He said Ferrari is “seeing what we expected,” but that it is “definitely not what everybody thinks in terms of upgrade and lap time gained.” He pointed to work done to introduce the upgrade package quickly as one reason performance has improved, while also arguing that others may still have more potential to unlock as the weekend progresses.

In the same comments, Leclerc noted the competitive outlook he expects for Saturday. He said Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen appear “very strong,” adding that Verstappen and Antonelli “will definitely be up there.” He was less definitive about the McLaren, saying he “doesn’t really know yet” because, in his view, the team may not have “put everything together,” though he still framed the pace as uncertain beyond Ferrari’s own progress.

Leclerc referenced the narrow margins that separated the front of the field in the first two practice sessions. Ferrari set the pace in both, but the time gaps were small, with Leclerc’s advantage listed as 0.084s over Verstappen in FP1 and 0.042s over Antonelli in FP2. Even with that momentum, he characterized Friday as an early-stage benchmark rather than a reliable indicator of where Ferrari will stand in Qualifying and the race.

Ferrari Team Principal Fred Vasseur also sounded a cautious, learning-focused message after the early sessions. He said it was “a good start” but that it is still “very tight,” adding that he was “not sure that the classification of FP1 was always relevant for Qualifying.” In his view, the team must stay focused on itself, because it has “a lot of things to learn on the car with the new package” and needs to improve its process for the next day.

Vasseur suggested the upgrade impact may be smaller than earlier in the season, describing that it is “a bit less than at the beginning of the season.” That, he said, means Ferrari needs to “finetune everything” to extract the best performance for tomorrow. He also highlighted the different demands of Qualifying, explaining that once a driver is in the “dirty air,” it becomes “more difficult,” and he positioned the pole fight as open among multiple cars.

According to Vasseur, there are “five or six cars” capable of competing for pole tomorrow at Circuit of The Americas. He framed that as beneficial for F1, and emphasized that it is important for Ferrari to be in front when the session begins, while maintaining the weekend-realistic stance that Leclerc set earlier on Friday.

The comments come with Ferrari still searching for its next race win after the team’s last victory at Round 9 in Great Britain. While early Free Practice pace suggests the Scuderia’s direction is working, both Leclerc and Vasseur underscored that the rest of the weekend—starting with Qualifying—will reveal which teams can convert practice advantage into qualifying performance and, eventually, race results.