The enigma Ferrari is looking to solve before time runs out

If Ferrari’s current supremacy in the World Endurance Championship were to represent the Prancing Horse at something approaching its fleetest gallop, then its F1 team currently seems to be operating at a steady canter.

Contrary to popular belief, 2025 does not represent Ferrari at its worst – total implosions across its history are rare but, when they do occur, they tend to resemble all-encompassing maelstroms that threaten to pull everything that surrounds them into the vortex. The waters are choppy at the moment, but not at the cadence that sinks ships; the Ferrari boat is ‘merely’ rocking at the moment.

It looked so good last year. After a mid-season wobble, instigated by a floor update that led the team up a development dead-end, Ferrari rallied over the second half of the season and brought itself into a constructors’ championship title fight with McLaren to roll back the years to their various duopolies in F1.

Just 21 points separated the two teams on the prelude to the Abu Dhabi finale, with McLaren winning the bout by just 14 at the season’s chequered flag.

When you consider the note on which Ferrari ended 2024, the decision to make not-inconsequential changes over the winter seems risky in retrospect. Sure, Lewis Hamilton’s internet-shattering move was done long before, but his signing was not the only way Ferrari tried to reinvent itself over the off-season.

When it thrashed out the technical specifications of its 2025 car, the team felt that it had extracted all it could from the pushrod-front, pullrod-rear suspension geometry and thought it should follow the lead of Red Bull and McLaren by upending the front rocker arm to make it a pullrod-operated front unit. 

Ferrari stuck with the pullrod at the rear too, despite the packaging bonuses offered in moving the rockers to the top of the gearbox. It’s a deceptively significant change, because it leads to a shift in the way the loads are placed through the tyres and the manner in which the car is operated.

Although Ferrari has contended that its SF-25 is merely evolutionary, changing any part that creates knock-on effects with regard to set-ups and customisation naturally produces a ‘fog of war’ effect, where a team’s engineers have vast unexplored regions in their ‘map’ of performance, rather than the small blank spots left by a smaller evolutionary change.

Hamilton takes to the grass during FP1 at Imola; Q2 exit hamstrung the fourth-place-finishing Brit’s podium hopes

Photo by: Andrej Isakovic / AFP via Getty Images

On the launch of its 2025 car, Ferrari technical chief Loic Serra stated that the full envelope of Maranello’s previous chariot had been fully explored, and the team needed to move the game on.

Building a car with more room to grow would usually seem like a sensible decision but, with just one year before the current rules are thrown in the bin, does Ferrari really have time to exploit the full potential of its latest car? It has to at least try, lest 2025 prove to be a damp squib.

Hamilton: Ferrari’s blockbuster signing on inconsistent form

For all of the coat-draped-on-shoulders posare in preview of Hamilton’s first season at Ferrari, the seven-time world champion’s oeuvre in 2025 has been remarkably hit or miss. Hit: sprint race win in China. Miss: disqualification at the Chinese Grand Prix. Hit: fourth at Imola. Miss: qualified 12th at Imola. Every weekend, his fortunes appear to turn on a dime with seemingly very little rhyme or reason. 

"At Jeddah, we were probably the fastest on track in the race and three tenths off in quali. Miami, it was the same delta. Imola, it’s probably the same delta. I think that we don’t have the best car but we are really close in [race] conditions. That means that we need to do a step on the quali mode" Fred Vasseur

In reality, there’s rhyme. The Ferrari generally starts off a weekend with a solid baseline (hence Hamilton’s China sprint performance) but, when it comes to the ’twixt-session set-up fiddling, it hits a bit of a ceiling with what it can do with qualifying pace.

Hamilton, who last year revealed his fears that he’s lost his former edge on single-lap pace, tends to bear the brunt of that versus qualifying maestro Charles Leclerc.

That’s the rhyme – how about the reason behind Hamilton’s through-weekend rebound? Ferrari’s improving race pace has kept it in the game.

Team principal Fred Vasseur estimated after Imola that Ferrari had a qualifying deficit of around 0.3-0.4 seconds per lap in raw pace, which can put it on the cusp of a premature Q2 elimination if the car isn’t hooked up just so for a quali lap.

High points for Hamilton this year have been patchy – victory from pole in Shanghai sprint is the stand-out

Photo by: Getty Images

But it’s pretty handy on race pace; the oft-chuckling Frenchman made the outlandish claim that the SF-25 was the quickest car going at Jeddah for April’s Saudi Arabian GP. But he’s not wrong; Leclerc’s long medium-tyre stint was only about 0.3-0.4s per lap slower than that of Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri (and the Monegasque did eight and 10 laps respectively longer on his yellow-walled Pirellis), and was quicker than both during his last stint on hard tyres. 

“We always had this delta, quali pace to race pace,” Vasseur explains. “At Jeddah, we were probably the fastest on track in the race and three tenths off in quali. Miami, it was the same delta. Imola, it’s probably the same delta. I think that we don’t have the best car but we are really close in [race] conditions. That means that we need to do a step on the quali mode.”

As much as Hamilton may lament the natural pace evaporation that occurs on entering his fifth decade, he’s taken solace in the idea that Ferrari can make something of their Sundays.

Take Imola, for example; both Leclerc and Hamilton were filtered out of the pole reckoning in Q2, with a handful of traditionally ‘slower’ cars putting themselves between the front row and the Ferraris.

At Mercedes, Hamilton might have turned up to the press pen with tail firmly between legs and at his monosyllabic worst; instead, he has found something of a loquacious streak in explaining the progress he’s making – no matter how glacial that progress appears to be.

“China was pretty great, but I’ve always loved when you’re fighting from further back and coming through,” Hamilton said after that Imola race. “That’s how I started off as a kid. That’s always a better feeling than starting and finishing first. But definitely an absolutely mega race and so many positives to take away.

“The strategy was really fantastic; they made great calls. In China I felt really aligned with the car and then the only other time is [Imola]. I felt that real synergy, and I think the set-up was great.

“We made a bit of an improvement in our performance for the race. We’ve just got to unlock the potential in qualifying. If we had qualified [higher up] we would have been fighting for a podium, which is something we didn’t think would be possible.”

Leclerc’s frustration apparent as the SF-25 continues to fall short of his expectations

Photo by: Jayce Illman / Getty Images

Imola’s fourth-place finish was a decent return for Hamilton, who raced in Italy in red for the first time. But he’d dearly love to stand on Monza’s ‘floating’ podium and soak in the adulation from a sea of tifosi below. If you’re a Ferrari driver, indulging in that fervour is a perk of the job – if you can get that far.

Leclerc: Is Ferrari’s favourite son losing patience?

It wasn’t so long ago that Leclerc felt like a Ferrari lifer – “Il Predestinato”, as he’s known in Italy; “the predestined one”. Even for the reverence he commands there, as Ferrari’s leading light since joining the team in 2019, his patience continues to be tested.

Leclerc is now 27. He’s arguably approaching the peak of his powers, and has blended searing qualifying pace with an incisive-yet-delicate touch on racecraft and race management over his time at Ferrari.

If 2024 got his hopes up that he’d be a very real contender for this year’s title – he was tipped by many in the media as a genuine threat to the McLarens and Max Verstappen, Ferrari’s swing-and-a-miss so far this year has failed to deliver.

"I don’t think there’s any silver bullet. We just need to work and try to understand from where this problem that we have in qualifying comes from" Charles Leclerc

His frustrations have added a very different edge to his comments; usually, Leclerc has been a self-deprecative sort who has been more keen to throw himself under the bus than his team – a bit like Lando Norris, but not quite with the same ubiquity.

This year, however, there’s a common strand in that his disappointment is not directed internally. He knows that his ability is worthy of more illustrious results and that Ferrari should be in a position where it can produce title-contending machinery. Last season, then, feels like something of a tease.

In times of strife, drivers default to the usual aphorisms about hard work, understanding, and anything else that makes it sound like they’re on the cusp of pulling an all-nighter to submit a piece of coursework. And Leclerc recognises that, because he knows that he has to temper his exasperation and pull punches to keep the team on-side. 

Double points finish for Hamilton and Leclerc in Chinese GP lost to disqualification

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

“I mean, this is the obvious answer, but that’s what we are doing,” alludes Leclerc of the need to put noses to grindstones. “I don’t think there’s any silver bullet to the situation we are in. We just need to work and try to understand from where this problem that we have in qualifying comes from, which is what is slowing us down at the moment.”

Last year, Leclerc committed his long-term future to Ferrari; although the length of his contract was unconfirmed, rumours suggest that it will last until the end of 2029. So his expectations that Ferrari should match his commitment to the cause come as no surprise.

He could have signed a shorter deal and had his pick of the teams, depending on who was most likely to win a title, but it’s as if winning a championship with anyone other than Ferrari is of little interest to him. He doesn’t want to be any old F1 champion – he wants to be a Ferrari champion.

He’ll have to wait until 2026 at the earliest for that, unless the team miraculously lights the touchpaper over the next two-thirds of the season to chalk up win after win…

What’s next for Ferrari in 2025?

Beyond the mandated front-wing revisions for the Spanish GP, Ferrari is expected to keep its foot in with development over 2025, despite the utmost importance of preparing for the new regulations arriving in 2026.

This will allow Serra, taking over from the Aston Martin-bound Enrico Cardile as technical director, a chance to make his influence felt upon the team; the Frenchman arrived too late in 2024 to have a significant impact on the 2025 design.

Vasseur also wants the team to continue working on 2025. Not only does he feel that there’s a lot more to come from this year’s car, but he’ll also know the value of ending a season with answers to every key question – even if the 2026 rules are completely different, the work on processes and validation will be valuable across both projects. 

Vasseur is confident Ferrari can extract more from its 2025 car

Photo by: Colin McMaster

“I have great confidence in our working group – we know we need to improve, but that’s a constant in motorsport,” explains Vasseur. “Even if you’re leading, you know you must keep improving, otherwise you expose yourself to attacks from rivals.

“As for this year, we’ve probably made some mistakes with the car. We need to do a better job, but the motivation is there and the mindset is there. We just need to keep growing [as well as] identifying and solving problems.

“We often end race weekends with the feeling that we haven’t extracted the maximum from the car. As long as we have that feeling, I can’t say I know the exact potential of the project. That’s why I believe there are still signs that there is room for improvement.”

"We often end race weekends with the feeling that we haven’t extracted the maximum from the car. That’s why I believe there are still signs that there is room for improvement" Fred Vasseur

Reports from Italy suggest that Ferrari is planning to have a new floor and revised suspension package online in time for July’s British GP, which it hopes will be enough to imbue the car with a more competitive streak across the second half of the year.

From there, the team’s gaze should shift towards 2026, where it hopes to deliver on its desire to bless Leclerc and Hamilton with a championship-winning steed. But if either driver hoped for title success this year, then it’s going to take a little longer than planned.

This article is one of many in the new monthly issue of Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the July 2025 issue and subscribe today.

New floor and revised suspension package reported to be due ahead of the British Grand Prix

Photo by: Bryn Lennon / Formula 1 via Getty Images