Ferrari is missing in this start of the 2025 Formula 1 championship. The Italian team just can’t seem to take off, with performance that remains crippled. The new floor seemed like it could offer something extra at the 6.174-kilometre Jeddah Corniche Circuit, and yet, when all was said and done, the qualifying result remained the same. Charles Leclerc, skillful in getting the most out of the SF-25 car, secured the second row with a fourth-place finish behind George Russell. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton did not go beyond seventh place, even behind the man who took his seat, namely Carlos Sainz, now driving for Williams.
Once again the setup choice doesn’t pay off simply because the performance isn’t there. Without getting lost in too much detail, we immediately notice that a large gap formed in the first three corners, an issue already seen on Friday during the first free practice sessions and not resolved by the Maranello team’s technicians and engineers. Looking at the lap as a whole, the first turns are the only slow ones on the circuit. The SF-25 has mechanical grip, and we have seen that it can benefit in terms of racing line, so the issue is not low-speed grip per se.
We need to look at the situation more broadly and consider two key factors that likely had a major impact. The first is that Ferrari aimed to optimize one type of corner, but in doing so, made handling more difficult in other sections. A Formula 1 car must always be a compromise, and in this case, fast corners matter more, as they make up most of the track.
In terms of suspension setup, the Maranello-based F1 team had fewer options compared to Red Bull and McLaren, who both start with a much stiffer suspension base. Ferrari had to search for this characteristic in their setup in order to get the most out of the platform. Once again, this is not a problem stemming from the rear suspension, which is the result of various design choices that are useful on other circuits.
Ferrari’s operating window is quite narrow and, in general, it has less raw performance than the Red Bull RB21 single-seater, which has a lot of pace but is even harder to fine-tune. The second key factor concerns the tyres, as the front ones cool down very quickly. Both Italian cars started their laps with front tyre temperatures too far from the target value. This issue affected other teams as well.
However, others managed to mitigate it or at least balance the gap over the course of the lap. Ferrari’s outcome in the qualifying session for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is therefore the result of these two factors, in roughly equal measure. Apart from that, the balance wasn’t bad, but they continue to suffer from slight understeer compared to their main competitors. This aspect significantly reduces how much speed they can carry through the middle of the corner. On top of that, the car is not very stable during direction changes.
Looking at battle for pole position, McLaren was more competitive than Red Bull. Consider that Max Verstappen got a strong slipstream on the main straight, arriving at turn 1 with a 0.1-second advantage over Charles Leclerc and Oscar Piastri. The Dutchman gained a full 8 kilometers per hour on the main straight compared to his closest rivals. The Austrian team knew they didn’t have more pace than the MCL39, but they are aware that in the race it will be hard to overtake them due to their high top speeds.
Without a doubt, in Jeddah McLaren once again had the most complete package. Overall, Oscar Piastri was a bit weaker on corner entry, but very quick in the second half of the turns, from the acceleration phase onward. In the first meters of the exit, he was gaining time on the ultra-fast RB21, but by the end of each straight, the blue-liveried car was back on top.
— see video above —
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