The fourth round of the season will mark the introduction of Ferrari’s first update package. The start of the season has been disappointing compared to the end of the 2024 championship, which had raised hopes for a strong continuation in 2025. The goal now is to quickly get back on track and prove the ability to improve during the season, while also addressing the issues currently limiting the performance of the SF-25, which has fallen behind McLaren after closely contending for the championship just a few months ago.
Here are the updates announced for the SF-25: the floor has undergone a comprehensive upgrade.
In the Bahrain paddock, among the cars under the spotlight is certainly the Ferrari SF-25, which will be fitted here with a new floor that, as confirmed by Lewis Hamilton, should increase the aerodynamic load currently available on his car. At the same time, Charles Leclerc stated that the updates are unlikely to close the 3–4 tenths gap to McLaren at the moment, “But they are a big step forward.” As anticipated, the updates concern the entire floor, with changes from the Venturi channels all the way to the rear diffuser. Lewis Hamilton’s car was seen in the Bahrain pit lane this afternoon already fitted with the new component, which differs significantly from the version installed on Charles Leclerc’s car, which will be driven by Dino Beganovic during FP1 today..
At the moment, it has not been possible to clearly see the Venturi channel inlets, as they remain covered by the front wing, but from a side view, a change to the central strake is already noticeable—it now extends beyond the top edge of the floor for the first time this year.
There are evident changes to the steps of the “outer fence,” which protects the Venturi inlets from the harmful turbulence generated by the front tires, and the rear section no longer features the serrated design seen at the start of the season. The design of the first part of the floor’s edge has been completely changed as well, bringing it closer to the solutions used by the top teams. The raised lip of the floor edge and the strakes that manage airflow have been revised—there are now three vortex-generating elements. The rear portion of the lip has also been extended toward the back area of the floor edge wing.
In the monopylon area, where a minor modification was expected, a new aerodynamic appendage can be seen at the base of the structure, to the sides of the exhaust, which will clearly influence both the hot air exiting the engine cover and the air channeled downward from the tray, directing it toward the top part of the diffuser and the beam wing. This is a refinement of a winglet Ferrari had already installed last year on the monopylon at the Australian GP, as explained by F1 experts Paolo D’Alessandro and Rosario Giuliana for autoracer.it.
The diffuser of the SF-25 has been completely redesigned and, as expected, is the area most affected by this update package. The keel shape is significantly different, with more compact dimensions compared to the ‘base’ version used during pre-season testing in Bahrain. This marks the first major revision of the car.
As previously mentioned, a new brake cooling duct will also be introduced in the rear area. The first free practice session will clearly be focused on data collection and studying the updates, with Dino Beganovic running the standard version of the SF-25, while Lewis Hamilton will debut the new parts. This first update package is important, as the drivers have suggested, to try to reduce the gap to the leading car – in this case McLaren – and to help define the development plan for the rest of the season. The engineers, led by Loic Serra and Diego Tondi, are already working on a second major package, which will only be validated and approved after analyzing the data gathered in Bahrain and the following GPs.
Source: autoracer.it
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