For Ferrari, there is little to say after the Australian Grand Prix. Yet, there is much to analyze. Everything that could go wrong did for Ferrari. Across five sessions—free practice, qualifying, and the race—the SF-25 only showed signs of life in FP2, an illusory session where promising performance levels emerged, only to disappear completely in both dry and changing conditions over Melbourne’s 58 laps.
The SF-25, which had adopted a higher downforce setup, did not benefit from what many, wrongly, had described as a wet-weather setup. Let’s make it clear once and for all: in today’s Formula 1, there are no specific wet-weather configurations. The truth is that, at this moment, the Italian car needs to run with higher wing angles to unlock its potential, which was nowhere to be seen.
The comparison with rivals was ruthless: despite the confusion caused by Safety Cars and an evolving track between rain and drying phases, the Ferrari never emerged, constantly suffering significant gaps to the dominant McLarens—who actually underperformed relative to their true potential—to Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, which remains a consistent contender, and even to the Mercedes duo, who finished well ahead, aided by Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s sensational comeback to fourth place.
The time for reflection will come, though by next Friday, the cars will already be back on track for the first free practice session of the Chinese Grand Prix . There is little time to recover and understand what went wrong with the Ferrari in the Australian Grand Prix weekend. But beyond the modest form already apparent in Bahrain, the most concerning issue was the pit wall’s inability to read the race.
In the closing stages, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc suddenly found themselves in first and second place. That was the moment when the strategists completely failed, forcing both drivers, who also played a part in the blunder, to stay out on hard tires as the track got wetter. An inexplicable decision that reveals one undeniable truth: right now, confusion reigns supreme in Maranello.
It’s time to put away the triumphant tone from the Fiorano shakedown, where even credible journalists touted hastily gathered lap times as record-breaking figures.
Of course, one must avoid the opposite mistake of declaring the season lost. The 2024 Formula 1 campaign showed that comebacks are possible, and today’s conditions only magnified the struggles of a project that still needs fine-tuning. In China, on a track more similar to Bahrain in terms of characteristics, we will see how the SF-25 reacts and whether it can immediately get back on track toward the goal everyone has declared: winning the 2025 Formula 1 world championship.
Words carry weight, and everyone in the Ferrari camp has spoken heavy ones. Now, they must prove that those statements were not just empty talk but the result of confidence in a job well done. Let’s forget the Milan fanfare, the glitter of Piazza Castello, and the unjustified optimism from the mid-February filming day. It’s time to get to work and solve a series of technical and logistical issues that have now exploded dramatically.
Source: formulacritica
