Ferrari introduces car upgrades for F1 Bahrain GP to combat poor form

Ferrari has brought its first update package of the 2025 Formula 1 season to the Bahrain Grand Prix, introducing a new floor to inject more performance into its SF-25.

The Italian squad has lacked significant pace so far this year, leading to both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton stating after last weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix that Ferrari needed upgrades to compete with McLaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes. 

Leclerc had hinted that updates were in the pipeline for the coming races; as such, Ferrari has addressed its underbody design in an effort to find more downforce.

This has been a wide-ranging update touching on all elements of the floor; the floor fences (the vertical strakes at the front) have been reprofiled, while the leading edge to the floor body has also received modifications.

Ferrari's pre-event technical notes state that the "updated front floor / fences target an improvement of the losses travelling downstream".

These changes have also been augmented with a change to the floor edge wings, while the rear of the floor has also been addressed with a reprofiled expansion zone into the diffuser.

Ferrari SF-25 technical detail

Photo by: Filip Cleeren

The team's notes also state that "the reshaped boat-tail and tunnel expansion have been subsequently reoptimised, together with the floor edge loading and vorticity shedding into the diffuser”.

A small change to the rear wing pillar has also been submitted, with a change to the winglet mounted here which "aims at a minor improvement of car aerodynamic efficiency".

McLaren and Red Bull have also introduced minor changes to their cars in Bahrain; the MCL39 has received a new front brake duct winglet “aiming at better flow conditioning, resulting in an improvement of overall aerodynamic performance”.

Red Bull's front wing also has the option for a longer-chord upper element (a greater distance between the leading and trailing edges) to ensure it can balance the downforce with any of the higher-downforce rear wings.

Along with Haas, Red Bull has also registered changes for the increased cooling demands of the Bahrain weekend with a different set of cooling louvres to expel more heat from within the engine bay. Haas, meanwhile, has opened up the central outlet at the rear of its engine cover to offer a similar effect.

It is expected that many of the teams will open up their cooling louvre panels on the engine cover in order to ensure that the powertrain is not subject to overheating during the race weekend.