F1 Spanish GP: Ferrari struggles with cornering but stays in the fight behind McLaren. Ferrari continues to struggle with front-end rotation at the 2025 Spanish GP.

For Ferrari, it’s the same story again for now. Spanish GP, round 9 of the 2025 Formula 1 season: nothing new was seen. According to the Prancing Horse, many things could have changed, especially concerning McLaren’s advantage. Considering the current performance of the MCL39, it seems the Woking team hasn’t been affected in the slightest by the FIA’s TD018 technical directive aimed at limiting aerodynamic flexibility of the wings.

Ferrari can’t manage understeer
Without drawing conclusions too quickly, it must also be said that only today’s qualifying session will offer a definitive indication of Ferrari’s outcome. We know very well the issues faced by the Maranello cars in achieving proper thermal management of the various tyre compounds, especially in qualifying laps. These difficulties seem to be re-emerging in Barcelona, despite the new front wing fitted to the SF-25.

This update, which the drivers confirmed as not “too significant” in closing the gap to the top, can nevertheless expand the car’s operating window—something it definitely needs. In terms of handling, both SF-25 cars once again showed understeer. This results in difficulty for the drivers to hit the apex, particularly at medium-speed corners.

However, this lack of rotation is a general issue throughout the lap. The front end struggles, even considering the attempts to shift the overall balance forward in Spain to “ease” the load on the rear tyres, which would otherwise tend to overheat. The most stressed tyre is the front left. In turn 5, which features negative banking, the Ferrari struggles a lot to find the apex.

Direction changes penalise Ferrari
Of course, the same goes for other cars, where they try to “drive around” the corner without aiming for the inner kerb. However, other teams have shown sufficient rotation to be able to carve a much tighter line. This reduces the likelihood of suffering a snap on corner exit when the driver gets back on the throttle.

The other major handling issue, stemming from a “weak” front end, is in direction changes. The SF-25 not only lacks agility but also tends to become unbalanced when it needs to switch the racing line quickly. This is definitely a weak point, as the driver is forced to lift off, resulting in significant time loss through the corner.

Spanish GP, FP2: Charles’ mistake costs in qualifying pace
Lewis Hamilton stated that the car is difficult to drive. This suggests the team is once again trying a very aggressive setup this season. We’ll only have confirmation of this later today. The fact that Ferrari performs well in the third sector confirms that the rear isn’t working badly at all, while, as mentioned, the front is clearly struggling.

This refers especially to the lack of front-end load compared to McLaren and Red Bull. Ferrari loses out on corner entry, but the rear puts power down effectively. The gap is telling when looking at the data, though telemetry shows a particularly large loss at the chicane in turns 7–8. In this section, the SF-25 loses nearly three and a half tenths to the front-runners.

That’s why the “real” gap might be around three tenths, not the five tenths shown in FP2. We took a detailed look at the telemetry data related to the moment Charles Leclerc lost those three and a half tenths. On corner entry, he suffered a strong and completely unexpected oversteer moment. A “snap” that wasn’t caused by any negative characteristic of the car. In this case, it was clearly a driver error, partly due to a strong gust of wind.