Ferrari’s 2025 Formula 1 season ultimately went down as a frustrating exercise in unfulfilled potential, ending with a muted fourth place in the constructors’ championship on 398 points and without a single grand prix victory to show for its efforts. For a team that had gone toe-to-toe with McLaren in the title fight just twelve months earlier, the regression was both stark and deeply concerning.
Expectations in Maranello were high heading into the year, particularly after assembling one of the most high-profile driver line-ups on the grid. However, what initially appeared to be a campaign full of promise quickly unravelled as technical compromises, adaptation issues and strategic misjudgements combined to derail Ferrari’s ambitions. By April, the Scuderia had already taken the drastic decision to halt aerodynamic development on the SF-25 entirely, choosing instead to redirect resources toward the 2026 project in the hope of long-term gains.
The partnership between Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton was billed as a potential benchmark for the rest of the field, yet over the course of a demanding 24-race calendar, their individual performances painted very different pictures. Lewis Hamilton’s first season in Ferrari colours proved to be the most challenging of his extraordinary career. The seven-time world champion finished sixth in the drivers’ standings and, remarkably, failed to stand on the podium at any grand prix, an unprecedented statistic for a driver of his calibre.
From a performance perspective, the numbers underlined the scale of Lewis Hamilton’s difficulties. Over the season, the 40-year-old qualified on average nearly two tenths of a second slower than Charles Leclerc and accumulated just 64.5 per cent of his team-mate’s total points haul. Such a gap highlighted not only raw pace issues but also deeper compatibility problems between Lewis Hamilton’s established driving style and the technical DNA of Ferrari’s machinery.
The adaptation challenge proved complex. Lewis Hamilton, whose success over more than a decade had been closely tied to Mercedes power units and a specific set of car characteristics, struggled to extract consistent performance from Ferrari’s engine behaviour and the SF-25’s extremely narrow operating window. This mismatch often left him appearing visibly disheartened during media appearances, reflecting the mounting frustration behind the scenes.
One of the few moments of relief arrived during the sprint race in China, where Lewis Hamilton secured victory in a shorter-format contest. That result stood out as a rare highlight in an otherwise punishing campaign, one that concluded with an average finishing position of 8.5, compared to Charles Leclerc’s stronger 6.75.
Despite the setbacks, Lewis Hamilton has continued to publicly support Ferrari’s long-term vision. He has acknowledged the steep learning curve associated with such a major career move while maintaining that he has no regrets about joining the Scuderia at this stage of his career. Internally, the focus has remained on extracting lessons from a difficult year rather than dwelling on missed opportunities.
In contrast, Charles Leclerc once again emerged as Ferrari’s primary reference point. The Monegasque driver delivered a solid and resilient campaign, finishing fifth in the drivers’ championship with 242 points. Charles Leclerc carried much of the team’s competitive burden, securing every one of Ferrari’s grand prix podium finishes, including standout second-place results on home soil in Monaco and later in Mexico.
Although victories ultimately remained out of reach, Charles Leclerc’s consistency proved invaluable. He completed all but three races during the season, even accounting for Ferrari’s high-profile double disqualification at the Chinese Grand Prix. His ability to regularly extract near-maximum results from an imperfect package prevented Ferrari from slipping further down the constructors’ order.
What went wrong and what lies ahead?
At the heart of Ferrari’s struggles was a technical direction that failed to deliver the desired performance. A crucial mid-season development call backfired when the team prioritised rear suspension changes over aerodynamic evolution, despite having already frozen aero updates. The result was a car that became excessively rigid and increasingly resistant to setup adjustments.
This lack of flexibility was especially damaging when real-world track conditions diverged from simulation expectations. The SF-25’s narrow performance window meant that even minor deviations could have a disproportionate impact on lap time, leaving engineers with limited options to recover competitiveness over a race weekend.
Further complications arose following plank wear infringements that led to disqualifications in China. In response, Ferrari adopted more conservative setups to ensure regulatory compliance, but this came at the cost of downforce and overall performance, compounding the car’s existing weaknesses.
Looking beyond 2025, Ferrari has elected to retain the Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton driver pairing as the sport prepares for one of the most dramatic regulation overhauls in Formula 1 history. The 2026 rules reset introduces a fundamentally new power unit philosophy, featuring an even split between internal combustion and electric power, alongside active aerodynamics and significantly lighter chassis.
Ferrari is set to unveil its 2026 challenger on January 23 at Fiorano, with team principal Fred Vasseur understood to be placing a strong emphasis on reliability and operational robustness rather than chasing aggressive early performance targets. The sweeping nature of the new regulations offers an opportunity to reset competitive hierarchies across the grid.
For Ferrari, the clean-sheet approach could provide the ideal platform to correct the strategic and technical missteps that defined 2025. With all teams starting from a similar baseline, the importance of past design philosophies is reduced, potentially allowing the Scuderia to reassert itself as a front-running force.
For Lewis Hamilton, in particular, the regulation changes may represent the fresh beginning he has been searching for since arriving in Maranello. With a new generation of cars and power units on the horizon, the 2026 season could offer the conditions required for him to rediscover his championship-winning form in Ferrari red.
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