The 2025 F1 season will reach its tenth race at the Canadian Grand Prix, marking the midpoint of the year. This comes at a crucial phase of the championship, important both for the current season’s outcomes and the future. Ferrari is the team most affected by these challenges, facing important decisions in the coming weeks: whether to continue believing in the SF-25 and its potential or to start focusing on 2026. The upcoming races, such as Austria and Britain, will be decisive in shaping the fate of the Italian team during a period that, beyond limited results, has been full of rumors and speculation. The team’s future depends on solving the difficulties of 2025, and technicians from GeS are expected to introduce a new rear suspension in the summer that should address some issues and help unlock the car’s potential—something the current mechanical setup cannot guarantee. However, aside from the lack of speed, reliability issues related to the power unit have also raised alarms at Ferrari.
What problems?
As exclusively reported during the Jeddah weekend, Ferrari’s engine specialists replaced the power units on both SF-25 cars as a precaution after receiving worrying data, bringing forward what had been planned for Miami. At Miami, Ferrari customer teams like Haas and Stake experienced failures of structural components in the power unit. Similar problems were confirmed at Imola, where a team member, when asked about the reliability of the engines, avoided giving a reassuring answer and preferred to rely on hope. Moreover, it was revealed exclusively that Ferrari decided to reduce the mileage of their power units to preserve engine reliability. Although this move does not affect the power output of the powertrains, it could lead Ferrari and their customer teams to penalties before the end of the season, as they will likely fail to complete the year using only the four units allowed by the FIA.
New change, yet another confirmation
To confirm these reports, another update arrived today. Coinciding with the start of FP3 at the Canadian GP, Ferrari officially announced the replacement of the power unit on both Charles Leclerc’s and Lewis Hamilton’s cars (all sensitive components restricted by the FIA were replaced except for the ECU and battery). This marks the installation of the third power unit only at the tenth race of the season. With fourteen more races to go and only one remaining power unit (taking into account rotations that allow using previously used units for less demanding races and some FP1 sessions), Ferrari risks incurring grid penalties. Or multiple penalties, given the current frequency of power unit changes, which makes the tally rise quickly.
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