Charles Leclerc explains why beating Lewis Hamilton is “not his target” in F1 2025

Charles Leclerc says he is not “interested” in beating new teammate Lewis Hamilton this season, as his main focus remains on helping Ferrari return to the forefront of Formula 1.

Hamilton’s high-profile move to Ferrari has created one of the most exciting driver pairings in F1, pitting the seven-time world champion against Leclerc, the driver long seen as the Scuderia’s best hope for a future title.

So far, Hamilton has had difficulties adapting to the SF-25, with a sprint win in China the only highlight of an otherwise tricky first half of the season.

Leclerc too has struggled with Ferrari’s 2025 F1 car at times this year, but has managed to override its problems to deliver four podiums so far, including a second-place finish at his home grand prix in Monaco.

At the halfway point of the campaign, Leclerc sits fifth in the championship on 119 points, 16 clear of Hamilton in sixth position.

However, with Ferrari still not in a position to contend for victories, Leclerc downplayed the significance of having the upper hand over his teammate.

“It's something that really is in the background for now,” he said. “You're always looking at it in one way or another, but when you are fighting for fourth-fifth-sixth, it's not really something that interests me that much. 

“Of course, when we'll start to fight for wins, then you look at those things a lot closer, but it's not really been part of my thought process for now. 

“I was just here to try and learn as much as possible from Lewis of what I could learn, what could benefit me as a driver, and then focus on myself with the target of doing the best possible job, which means beating Lewis but not only [him]. 

“The main target of the team and my main target at the moment is to bring Ferrari back to the top. Lewis is not my target at the moment because we're not fighting for very interesting positions.”

At the pre-Belgian Grand Prix press conference, Hamilton revealed that he had sent multiple documents to Ferrari outlining the changes he believes are needed to turn the team into a title contender.

Leclerc said both he and Hamilton have been working together to get Ferrari back to winning ways in F1.

“At the end of the day, we are both pushing to try and make Ferrari better,” he said. “He's preparing his points, I'm preparing my points.

“We are doing big meetings and then we speak about those points that we want to improve. So of course we are aligned with everything together with the team and everybody is pushing in the same direction, so that there's no stress whatsoever.”

Leclerc said that Hamilton brings a fresh perspective to Ferrari after his long 11-year stint at Mercedes, but revealed that the idea of compiling documents to highlight areas for improvement was nothing near at Ferrari.

He suggested that the attention around Hamilton’s recent comments was more about the timing of his remarks than any major shift within the team.

“It's always interesting to have a [new] person and in that case Lewis coming from a very different culture, from a very different team, from working with Mercedes for so many years and to point out a few of the things.

“I don't think that this is very different to the teammates I've had in my career in a way that we are all here to make the team better and we are all doing these kinds of documents in order to point out those points. So on that [front], there's nothing different.

“However, obviously it's a unique point of view and Lewis had an incredible career. So, these are things that we are looking at closely, but it didn't only start now. 

“It starts from the first race where you have the first points, where things are different and you've got to get used to all the things that you want to change.

“This is part of the process so I don't think there's anything standing out now. Maybe it's the first time he said it, so that's why it makes such a reaction but it's, it's nothing it's nothing particular to this moment.”