The summer break allowed Ferrari to fully recharge its energies ahead of the final ten Grands Prix of the 2025 Formula 1 season. After an intense and demanding first part of the year, the Italian side has been working to refocus its attention and plan carefully for the concluding segment of the championship. Ferrari is still actively pursuing its very first victory of the 2025 season, a milestone that has so far eluded the team, even though further development on the SF-25 has now been formally frozen. On certain circuits that are particularly favorable to the characteristics of the car, the SF-25 could potentially achieve a surprising result and even secure a long-awaited win. However, the single-seater continues to struggle with instability during heavy braking zones, a persistent issue that has made the car difficult to handle consistently under high-speed conditions.
The summer pause proved to be a revitalizing period for Ferrari. The mandatory two-week shutdown imposed by the FIA, which applies to all Formula 1 teams, gave the engineers, strategists, and drivers a chance to reflect, evaluate, and refine the objectives with which Ferrari plans to approach the remaining ten Grands Prix of the season. This period of enforced rest and contemplation was crucial for aligning the team’s strategy and ensuring that both the drivers and technical staff return to the track with a renewed focus on performance and results.
Development work on the SF-25 has been halted entirely, including the planned upgrades to the car’s floor, which had been scheduled earlier in the season. As a result, Ferrari must now concentrate its efforts on defending second place in the Constructors’ Championship, a position that carries significant prestige but also intense pressure. The gap to McLaren has unfortunately become extraordinarily large, with a margin of 399 points separating Ferrari from the British team, whereas the advantage over Mercedes is much narrower, at just 20 points. This situation makes the task of maintaining second place in the championship both critical and extremely challenging, as the team cannot afford any further setbacks if it wants to secure the best possible result in the Constructors’ standings.
The target for the Maranello team is clear and well-defined: to retain second place in the championship with dignity, honor, and as much competitiveness as possible. Ferrari must be prepared to seize any opportunity that arises from potential mistakes or miscalculations by the McLaren drivers, such as Lando Norris and his teammate, in order to convert those opportunities into a race victory. Such a win would provide some measure of satisfaction in a season that, so far, has been extremely difficult, especially when considering that the year began with the high hopes of challenging for both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ World Championships. While Red Bull and Mercedes have already enjoyed victories this season, Ferrari has yet to taste that level of success, a fact that weighs heavily on the team’s management, engineers, and drivers in Maranello.
The introduction of a new floor at the Austrian Grand Prix, combined with the adoption of a revised rear suspension, helped mitigate some of the SF-25’s most pressing issues. Nevertheless, the car remains a complex and challenging machine, requiring precision, skill, and careful setup adjustments to achieve optimal performance. In an in-depth interview with the German media, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur acknowledged the inherent shortcomings of the SF-25, explaining that McLaren, in particular, excels in tire management, especially under extreme conditions such as high heat or wet track surfaces. The French manager also mentioned that the disqualifications suffered by Ferrari in China disrupted the team’s carefully planned strategies and forced them to adapt on the fly.
Fred Vasseur elaborated that the team has always had to leave a safety margin regarding the car’s ride height. Modern Formula 1 cars are extraordinarily sensitive to ride height adjustments, where even a single millimeter can influence qualifying grid positions. Without precise control over the car’s ride height, overall competitiveness is inevitably affected. This necessity to manage ride height carefully diverts the team’s attention from other important preparation tasks, including tire management for qualifying, preparation of warm-up laps, and other operational details that are essential for competitive performance during race weekends.
Beyond these specific challenges, Fred Vasseur highlighted a broader reality about modern Formula 1 vehicles: everything revolves around aerodynamic stability. Over the past two seasons, Ferrari has shifted its focus significantly toward drivability, predictability, and consistency, rather than chasing pure downforce. The objective was to reduce fluctuations in aerodynamic load that occur when the wheels rotate, or when the car rolls or pitches under braking or cornering forces. According to Fred Vasseur, the most important progress in this area since 2023 was made at Monza during the previous season, where the drivers were able to extract the maximum potential from the car’s aerodynamic package. Without complete confidence in how the car behaves, the driver cannot exploit the car’s full performance potential, no matter how skilled or experienced they are.
This leads directly to the most critical issue Ferrari faces: the SF-25 still does not inspire full trust among its drivers. Charles Leclerc has become accustomed to navigating around the car’s weaknesses, relying on his natural driving talent to compensate, particularly during qualifying laps or in moments when precision is crucial. Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, has expressed a desire to work on the car to establish a consistent and reliable feel, something that has not yet materialized with the SF-25. His attempts to suggest changes to the car’s setup were reportedly met with responses implying that certain technical decisions at Ferrari are considered permanent and not open to adjustment, a mindset suggesting either pride, tradition, or fear of altering solutions that have historically been successful.
The modifications made to the SF-25, including the floor and suspension upgrades, alleviated some of the difficulties, but they did not fully resolve the car’s unpredictable behavior, particularly under heavy braking conditions. The Ferrari SF-25, in its current state, is not entirely honest at the limits, leaving drivers with less confidence in the car’s handling. This lack of certainty affects Lewis Hamilton more than Charles Leclerc, given the British driver’s driving style and approach to car setup. As a result, the remaining ten races of the season are expected to resemble a true lottery, where results will depend as much on luck and track compatibility as on driver skill or strategy.
If the SF-25 encounters circuits that complement its specific characteristics, Ferrari could still have a chance to achieve strong results and possibly secure its first victory of the season. However, on less favorable tracks, the challenge will be exceptionally demanding, with limited margin for error. It is unrealistic to expect a consistent upward performance trend similar to the one observed during the second half of the previous season. Instead, Ferrari fans should anticipate a rollercoaster of results, with unpredictable highs and lows depending on the circuit and race conditions.
Where the track surfaces and conditions allow a setup with minimal ride height, the Maranello car could potentially reveal its full performance potential. Conversely, circuits that limit ride height adjustments will present difficult challenges and likely lead to more erratic performance. Data analysis has revealed unexpected anomalies in the SF-25’s behavior: the instability under braking may not originate solely from the rear-end deficiency, which has been partially corrected. There is a distinct possibility that aerodynamic instability at high braking zones could originate from the front of the car in extreme situations, which would overly lighten the front end and reduce the confidence of the drivers when pushing to the limit.
This aerodynamic issue at the front could explain discussions about potential power steering difficulties at high speeds, even though Ferrari’s steering system has traditionally not caused significant handling problems. Circuits such as Zandvoort and Monza, on paper, should not be particularly unfavorable for Ferrari. Nevertheless, considering the unpredictable pattern of the season so far, it is prudent not to make definitive forecasts or assumptions about the team’s performance in the remaining races. Each Grand Prix will present unique challenges, and only careful analysis and adaptation will determine the final results for the Scuderia.
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