During the recent Christmas lunch, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur officially announced the presentation and shakedown date for the Maranello team’s 2025 Formula 1 car, which will take place on Wednesday, February 19, in Maranello. In other words, the day after the major season launch event, in which all ten teams, their respective Team Principals, drivers, and international guests will participate to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the World Championship. It is important to note that this event will only present the liveries of the various teams, while for the new cars, anyone who wishes will be able to hold their own dedicated event, as the Maranello team will do.
Looking back at the 2024 Formula 1 championship, Ferrari has experienced a season with three faces. The first part was clearly as the second force, with the goal of catching up with Red Bull. The middle part was more complicated, with Ferrari dropping to third and even fourth on track after the introduction of the problematic floor at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain, followed by a strong final part of the season, namely from the Italian Grand Prix at Monza onwards, where they were able to compete for the top spot at certain events. “I think the approach this year was very good. Even when we encountered difficulties in July, the team’s reaction was very good. We never blamed anyone or a department, but we worked together to find solutions across different groups, and it definitely went well,” said Frederic Vasseur to the press present at the Christmas lunch in Maranello – “Of course, it would have been better not to have problems, but I think the reaction was good, and that’s what we expect for the future if we want to fight for the championship.”
After a period of great understanding, during which Charles Leclerc was often sacrificed to gather useful data for factory analysis on unforeseen problems introduced with the aerodynamic update package brought to Barcelona, the SF-24 single-seater became competitive again. “I was very proud of the team’s reaction this year because a positive point of our season for me was when we struggled between the end of June and early July and were able to react quickly, then showing good pace both in the race in Budapest and in Spa,” Frederic Vasseur said. It’s worth noting that in Hungary, the ‘evolved floor’ debuted, with the first makeshift corrections made through Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis without spending hours in the wind tunnel, to fix some of the issues encountered with the Montmelo package. “This type of reaction will be crucial for next year. It’s true that now when developing the car, sometimes you take risks when introducing updates, and that’s something that has affected everyone, but it’s how you react in this situation that becomes crucial, even for next year,” Fred Vasseur concluded.
Ferrari surprise: Fred Vasseur announces that less than 1% of the SF-24 components have been transferred to the 2025 car
The Italian team expects a lot from the 2025 car, as it has already been emphasized several times, having invested many technical resources and setting up a completely new project that sees changes in all the major areas of the car: from the chassis, to the position of the driver and the engine, to the mechanics and aerodynamic surfaces. “We are in the fourth year of this regulation’s application, and we know our previous project very well. For this reason, the 2025 car will be completely new,” announced Fred Vasseur during the Christmas lunch in Maranello.
A calculated risk, according to the team principal of the Italian team, although with the current regulations, “sometimes you get the feeling that you are not taking risks, but then on track you realize that you absolutely were.” There will be significant changes to the front, with the suspension switching to a pull-rod configuration, following the philosophy already used by McLaren and Red Bull. Along with the significant mechanical improvements, the aerodynamic surfaces of the floor have undergone a major redesign, as reported by the Italian website AutoRacer and it will be quite different from the first spec 25 iteration seen on track starting in Las Vegas. Surprisingly, compared to the car that won 5 of the 24 races during the recently concluded season, even 99% of the parts will change, as Vasseur stated that the 2025 Ferrari will share “less than 1% of the current car,” marking what is truly a different project designed to try to win at least one of the two available world championships.
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