20/10/2025
NEWS STORY
It was decided to put Charles on an aggressive strategy, the only driver in the top 15 on the grid to start on used Softs, the majority of the field going with the Medium.
This allowed the Monegasque to pass Lando Norris for second place going into turn 1. Lewis maintained his fourth place. The Safety Car came out on lap 7 after Carlos Sainz and Kimi Antonelli collided. Charles' pace started to drop as his Soft tyres were suffering, nevertheless he battled hard and intelligently to keep Norris behind up until lap 22 when the Monegasque came in to the pits to switch to the Medium tyres. Charles rejoined in ninth place and began moving up the order, overtaking Nico Hülkenberg then Yuki Tsunoda. Lewis made his only stop for Soft tyres on lap 31. Norris closed on Charles again on lap 38 and a thrilling battle developed which ended in the Englishman's favour on lap 52, dropping Charles to third. The Monegasque recorded his sixth podium of the season, his 49th in total. This was also the Scuderia's sixth podium of the season, its 835th overall. Lewis came home fourth.
Charles Leclerc: I'm happy with our weekend. We made a very good recovery, from starting out with an issue in FP1 which put us on the back foot, to making progress in Sprint Qualifying and the Sprint race, delivering a solid qualifying, and being rewarded with a podium after staying focused on the job.
We were on a more aggressive strategy today, so my target was to gain positions at the start. Arriving on the grid as the only car on the Softs looked risky, but ultimately, it paid off.
Our team did a good job and we will push to keep this momentum as we head into the final rounds of this season.
Lewis Hamilton: It's been a productive Sunday overall. Today's race was a strong result for the team and we gained some good points. My first stint was encouraging, and I was in the fight for third, but after my pit stop the gap to the top three became too difficult to close.
As a whole, the weekend has been a positive one. It showed the progress we're making as a team and confirmed there's still more potential to unlock in the SF-25. Thank you to all the fans here, who brought incredible energy all weekend.
Fred Vasseur: It's great to be back on the podium with Charles and to have Lewis in fourth place. It's good for them and great for the team. It's extra motivation for everyone for the rest of the championship. I'm particularly happy with how we were able to fight back after a very difficult start to the weekend. The progress came from fine tuning the car and focussing a lot on the tyres. If you don't get them in the window you can lose five or six tenths and that's what happened to us on Friday. So, I'm proud of the team and how they reacted. Today, the pace was there and we decided to be aggressive with the strategy with Charles to try and be P1 going into the first corner and it worked in part as he gained one place. But now our focus must switch to being back on track on Friday in Mexico and try again.