Ferrari seems to have entered a phase of stagnation, where no further improvements are expected in 2025. Meanwhile, rivals continue to fight at the front. What exactly happened? In modern Formula 1, every detail is crucial to building a winning car. McLaren, the 2025 world champion, knows this well, while Ferrari appears to have hit a standstill. Other key teams like Red Bull and Mercedes, on the other hand, have recently claimed victories: so what went wrong in Maranello? The change stems from a costly summer decision.
Rosario Giuliano’s detailed analysis for We Are The Race highlights a key factor that enabled Milton Keynes to triumph in Monza and Baku, and Brackley to emerge victorious in Singapore. Both teams, in fact, continued to invest heavily in new front wings.
The last time this aerodynamic component was a major topic was in Barcelona, where a directive was introduced to limit front wing flexibility. In the following months, however, both Red Bull and Mercedes continued to work on “circumventing” the directive, achieving wing flex that remained within the newly imposed limits.
The work of these two teams is now paying off, while Ferrari’s situation is markedly different. The Maranello team appears to be in freefall, having lost second place in the Constructors’ Championship to Mercedes and now at risk of being overtaken by Red Bull as well.
The root of this problem seems to lie in directive TD018, following which Ferrari reportedly halted front wing development. Instead, from Barcelona onwards, the team redirected its focus toward developing new rear suspensions.
The goal was to improve braking stability and safety, but recent Grand Prix results show that this strategy has not paid off. McLaren made the same choice, supported by their strong position in the standings. In the case of the SF-25, however, concentrating on rear suspension development did not yield results. As a result, Ferrari is now stalled in aerodynamic development for the car.
At this stage, it seems likely that Ferrari will aim simply to “salvage the season” in 2025, while reserving all major development efforts for 2026.
Leave a Reply