Aggressive Ferrari SF-25 still held back by ground clearance limitations

The Spanish Grand Prix exposed a problem that has followed Ferrari from the beginning of the 2025 Formula 1 championship, namely managing ride height, and also highlighted the contrast with McLaren, particularly how the MCL39 is outperforming its rivals.

It is no secret that Ferrari, since the first race weekend of the season, has been forced to juggle its ride heights, constantly trying to keep the car as low as possible to maximize aerodynamic load, while also raising it just enough to avoid excessive plank wear.

This is an issue several teams face, but for Ferrari, it is even more crucial in the fight at the front. At the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain — a track full of high-speed corners where the car tends to compress — this limitation became clear. To fully understand it, we need to step back a bit.

Like Ferrari, McLaren also tends to run the car low, and at times the MCL39 has shown porpoising. As reported on Friday, the Woking drivers weren’t pushing to the absolute limit in high-speed corners like Turn 9 or 14, where the floor often scraped the track, slightly unsettling the car.

After analyzing Friday’s data, McLaren took a small step on Saturday, continuing to live with the porpoising — a bouncing effect that also explains why the MCL39 was scraping the track surface the day before. Despite its strong downforce, high-speed corners have never been McLaren’s strongest suit; the car shines in other areas.

Why is this relevant to Ferrari? To understand, it is useful to examine the race of the Ferrari drivers — especially Charles Leclerc, who remains the Maranello team’s main reference point and best interpreter of the often-nervous SF-25.

The ride height issue became particularly interesting during the second stint, when Charles Leclerc appeared able to match the pace of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri, who was leading at the time. Of course, the Monegasque had stopped earlier, knowing he had two sets of mediums that would give him more consistent degradation, but the topic of speed through long corners remains key.

Ferrari pushed aggressively to keep pace. Looking at the speed through faster corners — where protecting the front-left tyre is crucial — it is clear that Charles Leclerc was pushing hard in those sectors, while McLaren was managing. This was seen in turns like 3, 9, 13, and 14 — showing that Ferrari had to force the pace to keep up, while struggling more in the slower sections, where McLaren had better rear grip.

The Monegasque driver pitted after 40 laps, both to use another medium set and to cleverly avoid traffic. A few laps later, McLaren revealed what it still had in hand — a necessary move as Woking’s strategists had started to worry that Max Verstappen, on a three-stop strategy, could become a threat. Despite running tyres about 20 laps older, Oscar Piastri was able to increase his pace by several tenths, pushing through high-speed corners where earlier he had been managing. The change in pace was so dramatic that he was able to match Charles Leclerc’s times, despite the Ferrari driver having just pitted for fresh tyres of the same compound.

This helps explain the difference in race pace, but it also ties back to the unresolved issue of ride height. Pushing in high-speed corners — especially when trying to run the car low like Ferrari does — can increase plank wear, and it is no surprise that McLaren was initially conservative in those areas.

At the same time, radio messages highlight the issue, as Ferrari’s ride height problems also showed in radio messages sent to both drivers during the race. First, they were told to do lift and coast before Turn 1 (and sometimes Turn 10) — lifting off the throttle slightly earlier than usual. While this helps manage tyre and fuel consumption, it also reduces plank wear. Even more interesting was what happened on the main straight. Over the years, bumps have formed in the asphalt due to speed and stress. The lower the car, the greater the risk of hitting them — which leads to wear on the plank and a loss of top speed. During the race, Ferrari repeatedly asked the drivers to change their line to find a smoother area.

But there is a problem: since nearly all cars take the fastest line, rubber marbles accumulate off the racing line. Moving into these can reduce grip even further. That is why there were internal radio discussions about how to avoid the bumps without ending up on the marbles. This ties back to the request for lift and coast before heavy braking zones — a request made even after the Safety Car period, despite the cars running fresher tyres and having burned off excess fuel. It further indicates the real motivation behind the instruction. Ultimately, Ferrari continues to be as aggressive as possible, but it is clear that the Maranello team needs to introduce changes to fix a problem that has been holding it back for far too long.