Ferrari has decided not to give up. The 2025 Formula 1 season is difficult to interpret, as next year will bring the biggest regulatory overhaul in the history of the sport. Nevertheless, the Maranello team refuses to surrender to failure. It continues to push forward, attempting to turn around a season that began much worse than anticipated and is proving to be a Formula 1 campaign that has fallen short of expectations.
Numerous technical issues have held back the 677 project. What was meant to be a competitive car capable of fighting at the front has, unfortunately, failed to deliver. A look at the SF-25 car’s performance reveals that a race win has never been a realistic possibility. The Monaco Grand Prix doesn’t count due to its unique nature as a street circuit.
Among the problems identified is the rear suspension. The push-rod system has not worked as planned. Generally, it uses a slightly softer compression setup compared to direct rivals. The main difference lies not in the push vs pull dynamics, but in the spatial arrangement of the suspension arms, which results in a lower stiffness range and favors acceleration phases when the car squats.
In fact, in the first 10 Grands Prix, the SF-25 single-seater has consistently shown strong traction. However, the downside has been reduced high-speed stability, especially on tracks where the rear end must closely follow the front. Adding to this is a lack of downforce from the floor and the inability to set the underbody as originally intended—closer to the reference plane. Ferrari’s updates to the suspension and floor are aimed at addressing this situation.
It must be said that this is a particularly delicate matter. Finding the right balance between these components is always complex. Modifying the suspension kinematics has significant effects on a car, which must be thoroughly studied before they can be properly implemented. A relevant example is the Brackley-based team. Mercedes introduced a new rear push-rod at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix in Imola, where the team showed good pace in qualifying but lost ground over the full race distance. George Russell started third but finished seventh, even behind the two Ferrari cars that had started from sixth place on the grid—ending up in 11th and 12th positions.
The team led by Toto Wolff then decided to shelve the suspension temporarily. The reason is clear: they needed to carefully analyze the data collected over the Emilia-Romagna weekend. Taking a step back allowed them to better understand how to integrate and fully exploit the new component, which returned in the Canadian Grand Prix and apparently delivered the expected performance—pending further confirmation in Spielberg.
Given these events, a useful reflection can be made about Ferrari. According to Sky, the technical team led by Loic Serra will not be able to bring the mechanical update to the British Grand Prix, although it may be possible. This means the update could be delayed by another three weeks, debuting instead at the Belgian Grand Prix at the end of July.
That would be round 13 of the 2025 Formula 1 season, which means past the halfway point of the championship. This invites a legitimate question: why was Mercedes able to introduce such an update two months and a week earlier, at round 7? Is this due to Mercedes’ rapid development, or Ferrari’s slower pace?
Assuming neither team is in contention for the world titles, is it even worth investing time and resources in this type of upgrade, namely resources that would otherwise be allocated to the 2026 Formula 1 project? Red Bull has already announced that after Silverstone, its focus will shift entirely to the new regulations. McLaren and Aston Martin have made the same decision, with the latter having already modified the AMR25.
The reasons behind the delay are fairly clear. Producing a new suspension layout does not take much time, but designing it does. And this is the main issue: according to information gathered and reported by the Italian media in recent days, the Ferrari engineers and technicians have struggled to understand what kind of mechanical changes to implement on the SF-25. The historic team is well aware of its delay, but when the nature of a problem isn’t clear, trying random solutions is certainly not the right approach. Not to mention the inevitable adaptation period for any aerodynamic update, something Mercedes has shown can take several races before yielding full performance. The new floor will arrive next weekend in Spielberg.
This new component aims to make the Italian car’s operating window more efficient. Once again, it won’t be easy to find the optimal setup, as the aerodynamic map will be redefined. In other words, Ferrari faces an important phase of data analysis over the coming months to get the most out of the SF-25’s updates.
Meanwhile, the championship will continue to unfold, and the urgency to shift focus to 2026 will only grow stronger. This is the situation Ferrari currently finds itself in, hoping that the positive impact of the changes will be felt quickly, giving some purpose to a season that, so far, has lacked any. There is still hope in the Maranello team’s ability to respond, starting this weekend at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.
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