A lot of analysis for the Maranello team, but unfortunately things remain mainly unchanged. For the third round of the 2025 Formula 1 season, the Ferrari SF-25 is showing the same lack of rotation already seen at the Albert Park circuit in Australia and at the Shanghai circuit in China. A limiting condition that will likely be addressed with the first aerodynamic upgrades which set to arrive next week at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir. In the meantime, however, there’s the Japanese weekend to deal with, where a clear step forward in setup is needed.
From a purely handling standpoint, the two SF-25 cars once again proved to be imperfect. We are talking about the usual inherent lack of rotation in the Italian cars, which is clearly evident once again, this time at the 5.807-kilometre Suzuka Circuit. More specifically, in addition to the slow sections, a certain degree of understeer is also seen in the fast sections, as we had already pointed out in recent days in our previous articles.
This issue is noticeable at the hairpin at Turn 11, but also in Sector 1, where overall the Italian cars performed fairly well. Compared to the McLaren MCL39 cars, which are leading the pack, it is clear that Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are not able to make much use of the inside curbs. This is not so much due to car composure, but rather due to the lack of rotation on corner entry.
Ferrari chose to use the “standard” rear wing specification, namely a version that generates slightly less aerodynamic load compared to the British cars. For this reason, as mentioned yesterday, they tried to “counteract” the understeer by moving the center of pressure forward, also known as the balance of aerodynamic forces, succeeding only partially, at least for today.
Nonetheless, overall balance cannot be described as negative, even though there are still aspects that need improvement. Today’s simulator work will assist in this crucial goal for the rest of the Japanese weekend. There are indeed some strategic points where the Ferrari technicians and engineers will be working in the coming hours to find small setup tweaks that could unlock performance in specific areas.
A key point is definitely Turn 9, where on exit they manage to catch up with McLaren, but on entry, like Red Bull, they lose a full tenth. In that area, the MCL39 is very solid. By combining telemetry with onboard footage, the pattern we observe is a greater gain at corner entry, regardless of the corner type. On exit, they tend to lose out to the SF-25 single-seater, which is currently showing good traction.
In long, high-load corners, however, Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri currently have a huge advantage. Between the entry of Turn 13 and through Turn 14, the British Ferrari driver loses over 0.3 seconds to the papaya-colored cars. A localized gap that is far too large for an effective lap time. These are two corners taken almost as one, with light braking and significant steering input.
This puts tire grip under serious stress. The Woking car is very agile through the snake section and could probably extract even more potential from that part of the track. They don’t have the car with the most overall downforce, but they definitely possess the widest aerodynamic map. In other words, they can extract a solid and well-distributed amount of stable downforce from the floor. Overall, the reigning world champions also showed a slightly oversteering behavior, the exact opposite of the Ferrari cars. In fact, we noticed that in some situations, the drivers were forced to open the steering a bit mid-corner. A behavior that does not seem particularly problematic. Aside from this, the MCL39 confirms it has a very solid front end.
All in all, Ferrari is not that far from its working point. But another step forward is needed in order to hit the perfect operating window and it is a move that could significantly ease the task of closing in on the MCL39’s one-lap performance. If we consider the time delta up to the area of Turns 13 and 14, the two cars are actually neck and neck.
Then, a lot of performance is lost in the third sector. Red Bull has a lot of downforce, but for now, they are not exploiting it. They haven’t yet found a suitable window in which to make the RB21 work. For them too, the second and third sectors are critical in terms of performance. This drop-off for various cars from mid-lap onward, however, should not be attributed solely to tire management.
Surely, the non-optimal tire compound temperature played a role, both for the RB21 and the SF-25. But we also know that McLaren displays excellent thermal tire management over a flying lap, especially on this type of track with a rather high energy profile. We await tomorrow’s final free practice session to assess performance ahead of the qualifying session.
— see video above —
