Scuderia Ferrari endured yet another frustrating and underwhelming result during the 2025 Formula 1 British Grand Prix at the historic Silverstone Circuit. Despite ongoing performance issues and internal struggles, the Maranello-based team managed to slightly strengthen its grip on second position in the Constructors’ Championship standings. This marginal improvement was largely due to the prolonged crisis and competitive decline currently afflicting both the Mercedes F1 Team and the Red Bull Racing outfit.
Now, the iconic Italian racing team is pinning its hopes on a significant technical update to turn things around. Ferrari is preparing to debut a revised and modified rear suspension setup during a scheduled test session at the Mugello Circuit in Tuscany next Tuesday. This update will be combined with the new floor design that was introduced during the Austrian Grand Prix weekend. Together, these aerodynamic and mechanical changes are expected to provide a much-needed performance boost. However, the big question remains: will on-track performance confirm the optimistic expectations generated at the factory and in simulation?
Ferrari’s engineering and racing departments are now looking with anticipation toward the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix, set to take place at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit. That race could prove to be a decisive moment—perhaps even a turning point—in Ferrari’s 2025 Formula One campaign. The goal is not necessarily to launch a renewed challenge for either the Drivers’ or Constructors’ World Championships. Realistically, such ambitions appear out of reach at this stage of the season. McLaren, under the capable leadership of Team Principal Andrea Stella, has unfortunately established a commanding advantage in the standings.
The Woking-based team has accumulated a total of 460 points in the Constructors’ standings, while Ferrari, by comparison, has scored only 222 points so far. This means that the Italian side is currently trailing McLaren by a massive margin of 238 points, an enormous gap that effectively rules out any realistic title ambitions for the Maranello team.
However, the Belgian Grand Prix could still serve as a vital benchmark. Ferrari is hoping to demonstrate that the technical team, led by the experienced and highly regarded French engineer Loïc Serra, has the ability and expertise to rectify the design shortcomings of the SF-25 chassis. The main problem area remains the rear of the car, which has consistently failed to deliver the stability and performance required to compete at the front of the grid.
The overall outcome of the Silverstone weekend was once again negative for Ferrari. Seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton managed to secure fourth place in front of his home fans, but this result fell well short of the high expectations that had been set in the days leading up to the race. Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc, known for his relentless optimism, had gone as far as to suggest that a victory could be possible. His hope was based on the belief that the smooth and flat surface of the Silverstone Circuit would allow Ferrari to run a stiffer suspension setup with lower ride heights, helping the SF-25 generate increased aerodynamic downforce.
Despite those optimistic predictions, the British Grand Prix concluded with another strong sense of disappointment. However, Ferrari can take some limited consolation from the fact that, although they remain far behind the McLaren drivers—Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri—they managed to extend their advantage over their other main rivals. Both Mercedes and Red Bull continued to struggle significantly, falling deeper into a prolonged performance slump that has affected their results in recent races.
As a result, Ferrari has now increased its lead over Mercedes to 12 points in the Constructors’ standings. Meanwhile, the gap to Red Bull has grown to 38 points. This puts Ferrari in a strong position to defend second place in the championship, even if outright wins remain difficult to achieve.
Given the current context, the Scuderia knows it has the technical capabilities and overall potential to maintain second place in the Constructors’ standings. There is also hope that unexpected opportunities could arise. If the two McLaren drivers begin to engage in a fierce and potentially self-destructive intra-team rivalry in their quest for individual supremacy and the world title, Ferrari might be in a position to capitalize with a breakthrough win.
However, capitalizing on such opportunities requires near-perfect execution—something Ferrari has struggled to achieve in recent seasons. Even at Silverstone, fans witnessed an outstanding performance by German driver Nico Hülkenberg, who claimed a podium finish for the Stake Kick Sauber. His car is powered by a Ferrari customer power unit, yet he finished ahead of Lewis Hamilton, who was visibly struggling in the closing laps, precisely when a late-race comeback was expected from the British driver.
Ferrari continues to suffer from execution errors during race weekends. There always seems to be a flaw or malfunction in the operation of the Prancing Horse team. This lack of precision in implementing the weekend strategy—something Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur often emphasizes as crucial—prevents Ferrari from delivering the perfect Grand Prix weekend. Mistakes by drivers, combined with the inherent limitations of the SF-25 car, mean that the team never fully extracts the theoretical performance predicted by simulation tools such as the wind tunnel, computational fluid dynamics software, and advanced driving simulators.
To address these recurring problems, Ferrari is now placing significant hopes on the introduction of a newly revised rear suspension layout. The Maranello-based team is following a design concept that was first introduced by Mercedes at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola. This new layout features a forward-angled front arm on the upper wishbone of the rear suspension assembly. The purpose of this configuration is to stabilize the rear of the car during transient phases, such as braking and direction changes, thereby allowing for stiffer setups and lower ride heights. These are conditions Ferrari engineers had originally targeted during the early design stages of the SF-25.
Although the current generation of ground-effect Formula 1 cars is nearing the end of its technical cycle, Ferrari remains hopeful that these updates will allow the team to finish the 2025 season on a stronger and more positive note. More importantly, the insights and data collected from these mechanical modifications could prove highly valuable when finalizing the design of the 2026 car—internally referred to as Project 678.
While it is true that very little can be directly carried over from the 2025 Formula 1 cars to the revolutionary 2026 models—given the sweeping changes expected in chassis architecture, hybrid power units, tire specifications, aerodynamic regulations, and the adoption of sustainable fuels—some core technical principles and suspension philosophies could still be applied to the future Scuderia Ferrari machine.
It should also be emphasized that Ferrari’s version of the rear suspension update is more conservative than the solution introduced by Mercedes. On the Mercedes W16, the upper wishbone arm is mounted extremely high—almost at the same height as the lower arm—and directly connected to the gearbox housing. Ferrari’s solution on the SF-25 is less extreme, primarily because the team had to identify structurally sound mounting points on the carbon fiber gearbox casing that could withstand increased loads without compromising the overall reliability of the system.
During the scheduled filming day at the Mugello Circuit on July 16, Ferrari will install and test this crucial rear suspension modification. Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton will not take part in this test session. Instead, Italian development and reserve driver Antonio Giovinazzi will join Charles Leclerc in evaluating the performance and handling changes brought about by the new suspension layout. The Mugello Circuit, known for its technical complexity and variety of corner types, will provide an ideal testing ground to verify whether simulation results match real-world track behavior.
According to discussions circulating in the Formula 1 paddock, the combined impact of the updated floor and rear suspension could yield a lap time improvement of around one-tenth of a second. While this may appear marginal on paper, in the highly competitive world of modern Formula 1 qualifying, lap time differentials are often measured in hundredths or even thousandths of a second. Therefore, such a gain could make a significant difference in both qualifying performance and race pace.
The new floor package was already put to the test at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. In Belgium, attention will shift to evaluating the influence of the rear suspension not only on outright lap times but also on the overall confidence and feedback felt by the drivers. An improved suspension setup could help expand the operational window of the Pirelli tires, which has been a critical weakness of the SF-25 all season long. Broadening this window could give Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton a more predictable and consistent car across different circuits and weather conditions.
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