Ferrari is actively striving to significantly improve its overall performance and competitiveness in the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship season. The historic Italian racing team feels a strong and pressing need to prove to itself, its fans, and the entire Formula 1 community that it indeed has a truly winning package and a championship-caliber car. This subliminal and deeply motivating goal is what the Scuderia Ferrari intends to firmly achieve during the crucial second half of the current Formula 1 season, which effectively begins with the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit. Is it already too late to realistically target the ambitious objectives and lofty goals that were publicly declared and set at the very beginning of the 2025 season? Most likely yes. Unfortunately the chances are slim, but it remains vitally important from both a sporting and psychological standpoint to shake up this championship battle and return to a more competitive pace.
Yesterday, at the prestigious Mugello circuit—an important and highly technical racing facility owned and operated by Ferrari itself—the Maranello team began a unique and highly significant two-day test session. This special event includes all types of testing activities officially permitted by the current Formula 1 sporting regulations: Promotional Event activities (commonly known within the paddock as the Filming Day), Demonstration Event runs, and the often-discussed and sometimes controversial TPC sessions. The climax of this event will take place today when Ferrari unleashes its full power and technical potential on the track to rigorously validate the extensive developmental work carried out on the SF-25 race car. This will be the first serious technical intervention led by Loïc Serra
The entire Ferrari team, especially its engineering department, hopes that the detailed data gathered on the newly redesigned and upgraded rear suspension system will ultimately justify the considerable effort and resources invested in this update. However, rational analysis offers an even more important and strategic perspective. Without any shadow of a doubt, the technical upgrade debuting this morning during the official Filming Day can be considered the very first major engineering work fully designed, developed, and produced under the direct supervision and guidance of Loïc Serra in his newly assumed role as the technical director of the prestigious Italian Formula 1 team.
It is worth remembering and emphasizing that the highly regarded French engineering manager, Loïc Serra, had never before held such a senior technical position in his previous professional experiences within the sport, and that the Ferrari SF-25 car was originally conceptualized and designed before his official arrival at the Ferrari factory in Maranello. This factual statement is not intended to assign retrospective responsibility or blame to those who preceded him, but rather to simply acknowledge the chronological order and the realities of the situation. The second half of the 2025 Formula 1 season will ultimately reveal the true capabilities, strengths, and leadership qualities of the former Mercedes engineer.
The Maranello team urgently needs to achieve superior results using the very same resources and technical foundation that gave birth to the original and base version of the Ferrari 677 chassis. While for Frederic Vasseur, the current team principal, this might represent (perhaps) the final opportunity to prove his worth and effectiveness, potentially having a significant influence on his future role with Ferrari, for Loïc Serra this represents the first genuine and meaningful occasion to demonstrate his added value as a technical director and to put an end to any ongoing doubts or negative chatter surrounding his leadership.
Ferrari is therefore focused on the Filming Day and there is more than just technical answers on the table. In the limited and truly reliable kilometers that the SF-25 “Evo” will cover during today’s session, the Maranello team’s engineers and technicians will only get a preliminary and initial glimpse to assess whether the car’s real-world on-track behavior matches the highly detailed and precise predictions previously made through advanced computer simulations and wind tunnel testing. It is necessary to clarify one important fact: the much-criticized and often underestimated base version of the Ferrari SF-25 has already demonstrated itself to be quite competitive and capable in sporadic operating conditions and specific race scenarios.
One of the primary objectives of this technical update was to significantly modify and improve the rear suspension system so that the high-level performance demonstrated during the Sprint Race in China and certain crucial phases of other Grand Prix races could be reliably and consistently replicated regardless of varying factors such as fuel load, track layout, or tire compound used. This is an extremely complex engineering equation to solve, which is partly why it has taken longer than initially anticipated.
If the Scuderia Ferrari SF-25 had not already demonstrated flashes and glimpses of top-level performance and competitiveness, there likely would have been no need for a Filming Day test, and the team’s focus and resources would have shifted entirely towards the development of the 2026 car long ago. Why would Ferrari try to improve and extract more performance from a technical package that was designed under a regulatory framework destined to become obsolete and replaced in less than five months? The answer to this question is actually quite simple and straightforward: Ferrari has an urgent need to prove something important to itself.
This awareness goes far beyond merely complying with the current technical regulations and is firmly rooted in the quality, dedication, and motivation of the individuals within a healthy, focused, and well-functioning working group. If Ferrari can prove to be a genuine thorn in the side of McLaren Racing in the upcoming rounds of the 2025 season or at least come close to matching McLaren’s performance levels, the true and most important achievement will be the renewed confidence in its technical capabilities and overall strength at every level within the organization.
Such conviction and belief are absolutely essential in order to open a new winning chapter and establish a sustainable era of success. Both seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton and Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc, share no goals or ambitions other than winning the ultimate prize—the Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship crown. Winning one additional race or losing one may update the statistics, but it is of little real value unless it is directly aimed at securing the highest possible championship points and ultimately the World Championship title. A strong and decisive course correction is urgently needed to realign the Maranello team and its drivers with the clearly set objectives and mentally prepare themselves for a winning and competitive role at the very top of Formula 1.
— see video above —
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