During the thirteenth round of the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship, held at the legendary and technically demanding Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium, Ferrari made a deliberate and carefully calculated strategic decision to run Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton with distinctly different car setups. The outcome proved to be highly successful for the 27-year-old driver, who managed to secure a valuable third-place finish by crossing the finish line ahead of Max Verstappen after defending his position throughout the entire race. The Monegasque Ferrari driver spent almost the full race distance fending off repeated and determined attacks from the Red Bull Racing driver. On the other hand, the story developed quite differently for Lewis Hamilton, who, after catching up to the Williams of Alexander Albon, lacked the necessary straight-line speed and aerodynamic efficiency required to attempt and complete a proper overtaking manoeuvre. In the end, it was a comeback drive that remained incomplete and fell short of expectations.
So let’s take a look at Ferrari’s split-downforce strategy between the two SF-25 single-seaters.
At the start of the Belgian Grand Prix, every single car on the Formula 1 grid was fitted with intermediate tyres, and the race officially began behind the Safety Car due to challenging track conditions. This was an unavoidable and universally agreed decision, as the surface of the circuit was still damp and treacherous in certain sections. Although the track surface began drying relatively quickly, grip remained inconsistent across different parts of the circuit, and tyre temperatures were difficult for the drivers and teams to manage, particularly in the early stages of the race.
Charles Leclerc struggled significantly to keep Max Verstappen behind him during the opening ten laps of the Grand Prix. The Monegasque driver was using a lower-downforce aerodynamic configuration on his Ferrari SF-25 compared to his teammate Lewis Hamilton. As had already become evident during the qualifying session held earlier in the weekend, Max Verstappen was slower in terms of top speed compared to Charles Leclerc. This allowed the Ferrari driver to resist overtaking attempts by the Red Bull driver more effectively on the straights. The four-time Formula 1 World Champion Max Verstappen could only take advantage of the higher downforce of his RB21 car in Sector 2 of the Spa circuit, where overtaking is notoriously difficult due to the technical nature of the corners. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton, who had started further back on the grid, quickly found a strong rhythm and began posting competitive lap times from the very beginning of the race.
The British driver made rapid progress through the field in the early phase of the Grand Prix, climbing up to thirteenth position with well-executed overtakes. On lap 12, he made a strategic pit stop to switch from intermediate tyres to the medium compound slick tyres, which initially dropped him back to seventeenth place. The strategic intent behind this early pit stop was to perform an undercut on the group of cars running ahead of him. Once the first round of pit stops was completed and all the competitors had made their tyre changes, the results of the strategy became clear: Lewis Hamilton had jumped from thirteenth to seventh position, slotting in directly behind Alexander Albon’s Williams. The Ferrari strategists had timed the pit stop perfectly by calling the British driver into the pits one lap earlier than most of the field.
Charles Leclerc made his pit stop on lap 13, at the same time as Max Verstappen and much of the chasing pack. This synchronised pit stop strategy effectively prevented the Dutchman from gaining any kind of advantage through the undercut or overcut strategies. Right after his tyre change, Max Verstappen experienced a phenomenon known as “clipping,” a technical term in Formula 1 that refers to a temporary limitation in hybrid power deployment. In this particular case, the Red Bull’s energy recovery system was not optimally calibrated, causing the car to reduce or cut the deployment of hybrid power at the end of straights. This reduced the available extra boost of energy and compromised acceleration and top speed.
At the same moment, Oscar Piastri also pitted to switch tyres, while his teammate Lando Norris delayed his stop by one more lap due to the delta time not being sufficient to avoid a time loss from stacking both McLaren cars in the pits. Lando Norris opted for the hard compound tyre, committing to a different strategic path compared to his teammate. It was a somewhat unusual, but ultimately clever and pragmatic choice. In the laps that followed, the Australian reported concerns about tyre degradation and expressed fear over the possibility of not being able to finish the race on that single set of tyres.
Even during the second stint of the race, Max Verstappen was never truly in a position to attempt a serious and successful attack on Charles Leclerc. As the track surface continued to dry out lap after lap, Charles Leclerc was losing less time in the middle sector and benefitted from superior top speed on the long straights of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen seemed more comfortable and had a stronger pace during the wet phase of the race than he did once the track had dried. The Ferrari team’s calculated gamble with car number 16 clearly paid off and was justified by the final result.
Max Verstappen also complained once again about a persistent issue with the car’s rotation — specifically, a chronic understeering tendency that has plagued the Red Bull RB21 car across several races during the current 2025 Formula 1 season. While the Dutchman informed his race engineer via team radio that his tyres were still in relatively good condition, the front tyre degradation appeared more pronounced and contributed to his inability to seriously challenge Charles Leclerc for position on the podium.
As for Lewis Hamilton, he unfortunately found himself stuck behind Alexander Albon’s Williams for an extended period. The heavier downforce setup chosen for the British driver resulted in lower straight-line speed and a reduction in aerodynamic efficiency on the straights. This significantly compromised his ability to mount an overtaking manoeuvre in the latter half of the race, especially considering the strength of the Williams in top speed.
The seven-time Formula 1 World Champion had performed impressively in the early laps of the Grand Prix, capitalising on his tyre advantage and clean air to gain multiple positions. However, had he opted for a second pit stop and switched to another set of medium tyres, the improved pace that would have followed might not have been enough to justify the loss of track position. Such a stop would likely have dropped him two positions on track, and recovering them would have been extremely difficult — if not nearly impossible — especially considering that overtaking Alexander Albon already appeared out of reach due to the high-speed efficiency of the Williams car. The Ferrari pit wall, therefore, judged that the risk was not worth taking and decided to stick with the one-stop strategy for Lewis Hamilton, prioritising consistency and position retention over raw lap time.
In summary, Ferrari’s contrasting car setup choices between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton played a crucial role in determining their respective performances at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa. The low-downforce configuration chosen for Charles Leclerc allowed him to exploit his superior straight-line speed and secure a podium finish by successfully keeping Max Verstappen at bay for the entire race distance. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton’s high-downforce setup offered strong performance in the early laps of the race but ultimately limited his competitiveness in wheel-to-wheel combat once he got stuck behind traffic in the form of Alexander Albon. The Maranello team’s approach showed the complexity and depth of modern Formula 1 strategy, where different configurations can produce vastly different outcomes for each driver — even within the same team.
— see video above —-
