The 2025 Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya could be make-or-break for Ferrari’s season, as the Scuderia bid to further improve Lewis Hamilton’s car.
Ferrari have not had the year that the engineers in Maranello hoped for after missing out on the 2024 F1 constructors’ championship to McLaren by just 14 points. The pride of Italy trail their rivals from Woking by 177 points already after only the first eight rounds of the season. Lewis Hamilton is even only sixth in the drivers’ standings with 63 points to the 40-year-old’s name since he joined Ferrari from Mercedes. Charles Leclerc has also only taken 79 points to leave the Scuderia fourth in the constructors’ table ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend.
Ferrari will run new front and rear wings at the Spanish Grand Prix after ‘confirming’ their drivability quality in Monaco
The Italian side has put a lot of focus on this week’s round in Barcelona potentially saving their year, as the FIA will enforce stricter tests on flexible front wings in Spain. All 10 teams have had to tweak their designs, and Ferrari hope the FIA’s flexi-wing clampdown will cost McLaren a lot.
But the engineers in Maranello have also been busy ahead of the Spanish GP, as the Italian media reports that Ferrari will trial a new rear wing on Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc’s cars in Montmelo. It is designed with a flat main plane to produce more downforce than their V-shape rear wing.
Ferrari have also studied their data from last week’s Monaco Grand Prix where Charles Leclerc took second place and Hamilton came home fifth. The Scuderia have been able to ‘confirm’ that the drivability of last term’s SF-24 is a quality that Ferrari have rediscovered with the SF-25.
So, with a new front wing and a new rear wing, Ferrari hope rediscovering the drivability of the SF-24 with the SF-25 in Monaco allows Hamilton and Leclerc to challenge McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes at the Spanish GP with just five points between them and the latter two.
Lewis Hamilton will be desperate for Ferrari’s Spanish Grand Prix upgrades to work
The Maranello team earmarked the Spanish GP for their first major upgrades of 2025 as technical director Loic Serra delayed the Scuderia’s planned upgrades after he realised early in the season that the SF-25’s mechanical platform was too unpredictable to deliver the team’s desired results.
The Briton will hope the wait proves worthwhile, with the Briton still yet to score a Grand Prix podium finish since joining Ferrari ahead of the 2025 Formula 1 campaign from Mercedes. He secured the seven-time champion’s best finish of the term at Imola with fourth in Ferrari’s backyard.
Yet straight after the highs of his recovery in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, where he had only qualified in P12, Lewis Hamilton finished the Monaco GP 48.256 seconds behind his Maranello teammate. He lost around 12s after receiving a three-place grid penalty and 10s whilst trying to lap traffic.
Lewis Hamilton received a three-place grid penalty in Monaco after impeding Max Verstappen in qualifying when his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, incorrectly told the Briton that the Red Bull racer was on a cooldown lap but the reigning F1 drivers’ champion was on a flying lap.
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