PACE ANALYSIS: Where is Ferrari still losing time to its rivals in qualifying?

The qualifying session at the Canadian Grand Prix confirmed some weaknesses and strengths of the top four teams' cars. F1Technical's senior writer Balazs Szabo reveals where Ferrari are continuing to struggle compared to the three other outfits in qualifying.

The Canadian Grand Prix saw Mercedes display excellent performance both in qualifying and race trim. While the Brackley-based outfit was very competitive at Imola, the first venue where Pirelli supplied teams with its brand-new C6 compound, it was slightly unexpected to see the W16 display a dominant performance over a single flying lap.

George Russell posted a 1m10.899s on Pirelli's medium tyres to secure his first pole position of the season in dominant fashion. He was almost two tenths of a second quicker than reigning champion Max Verstappen while McLaren Oscar Piastri secured P3 on the grid, but he was three tenth behind.

Although Ferrari has displayed an encouraging long-run pace in most of the races since the start of the season, the Scuderia has struggled for one-lap qualifying performance which has often deprived Hamilton and his team-mate Charles Leclerc of fighting for top places at the sharp end of the field.

The Maranello-based outfit had a tough start to the weekend at Montreal as Charles Leclerc suffered a crash in the opening stages of the first practice session which caused damage to the chassis of his SF-25. It meant that he missed Free Practice 2 as well, thus missing out effectively on almost the entire running on Friday.

Despite his limited mileage, Leclerc looked competitive in qualifying, and he was in contention for a first-row starting position. However, he made a mistake in Sector 2 which saw him start the race from only P8 on the gid.

His team-mate Lewis Hamilton appeared to be competitive in qualifying, but he was ultimately unable to achieve more than a fifth-place starting spot, having been six tenths slower than his former team-mate Russell.

Comparing the qualifying performances of Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari, there are only tiny differences in terms of top speed. Verstappen recorded the highest top speed with 335kph, but his rivals Hamilton (333), Russell (332) and Piastri (331) were very close to him as the top four top teams opted for a similar medium-downforce aerodynamic configuration at the Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve.

The fastest corners (Turns 3 and 4) led to similar performances as well. Verstappen achieved the highest speed (147kph), but Russell, Piastri and Hamilton were all within 2 kphs to the Dutch driver.

Interestingly, the slowest corner saw Mercedes and Ferrari display the most convincing performance. Russell and Hamilton recorded 65 kph and 64kph respectively, but Verstappen and Norris were 3 kph down.

Russell gained the most time by having been able to spend more time on full-throttle (67.1 per cent of the lap) than his rivals Verstappen (63.4 perc cent), Hamilton (63 per cent) and Piastri (61.5 per cent).

Red Bull have produced F1 cars with good aerodynamic efficiency since the start of the current ground-effect era, and Verstappen could capitalize on it at Montreal as well with recording the highest top speed and the highest speed in the quickest corner of the track.

McLaren have been in a league of their own in most of the venues so far in 2025, but the Montreal qualifying exposed some of the weaknesses of their otherwise dominant MCL39. Piastri did not excell in term of top speed or cornering speeds, but he gained a good amount of time under the tricky braking zone into Turn 13-14.

Compared to Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren, Ferrari's SF-25 lost time on the exits of turns in Sectors 1 and 2. In fact, it was not a surprise to see Leclerc and Hamilton lose time under acceleration as this has been an Achilles' heel for the Italian outfit since the beginning of the season.