Why Ferrari SF-25 cannot hide its flaws on a technical track like Miami. Miami exposed the Ferrari SF-25's mechanical weaknesses.

F1 Miami, it’s McLaren’s triumph
In Miami, Oscar Piastri takes his fourth win in six races and McLaren ends the weekend with two one-two finishes—one in the Sprint and one in the Grand Prix. The standings widen, and it’s the first clear step forward by the papaya leaders. The American circuit may not be the most exciting, but it has technical characteristics that are particularly significant, especially for the current generation of single-seaters. We’ve explained it many times before, but the concept remains: the need to balance low and stiff suspension setups in the first sector, a softer and highly mechanically adherent setup in the middle sector, and maximum aerodynamic efficiency in the final stretch, makes the track technically selective under any condition.

When you also add the heat—usually present in the sunny Florida metropolis—tyre temperature control becomes an additional differentiating factor, allowing the most complete technical packages and the teams that best exploit every aspect of these cars to emerge. And that’s what happened, with a McLaren in a different league from the entire competition in race pace. Excluding Virtual Safety Cars and such, Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris had, by our calculations, an advantage of around 0.8 seconds per lap over all the chasers, consistently throughout the race, and naturally one wonders how that’s possible in the final year of the current regulations.

McLaren’s dominance stems from understanding these cars, started two years ago
To understand it, you have to go back to when the team began to grasp how this complicated generation of cars works—where everything is even more interconnected than in previous eras. Suspension setups determine not only mechanical grip, but also ride height, and thus the downforce generated by the car, and the energy transferred to the tyres. So mechanics and aerodynamics must work completely in sync to find a balance point. But there’s one point Andrea Stella has never doubted: the more aerodynamic load you have, the faster you can go, minimizing tyre sliding and therefore overheating issues. And McLaren’s pursuit started two seasons ago with the understanding of how to make the whole car function like a perfectly tuned orchestra. Since then, not a single misstep has been recorded from a technical point of view.

Every update has brought increasingly efficient downforce, to the point where the current car gives up even 5–7 km/h in top speed on straights due to how much downforce it produces. It runs with visible porpoising from being kept so low to the ground, even with relatively soft suspension, yet shows no issue with plank wear or load oscillations. It even seems that the superior aerodynamics generate flows so energetic that they are not destabilized by oscillations, guaranteeing maximum grip even when the car suffers from aerodynamic bouncing. Having reached the maturity of these regulations, McLaren appears to be the only team that has truly understood how to maximize performance from this generation of cars, while all others have had missteps. Of course, a final judgment will come after Barcelona, given persistent paddock rumors that the new directive will radically change the competitive order. For now, it’s hard to see how that could happen, considering McLaren’s solid advantage—but time will tell.

Rivals’ missteps create dominance: today’s Williams is a barometer, just like Aston Martin was in 2023
McLaren’s perfect development path coincides with the imperfect trajectories of its rivals. Starting with Red Bull, untouchable in 2023 but lost in 2024 (and minus Adrian Newey), which only now seems to have found its development thread. The RB21, conceptually still flawed in some respects, brought a new floor to Miami that seemed a concrete step forward, though not enough to contain McLaren’s overwhelming strength.

Mercedes has looked solid, but still struggles with tyre overheating, with Toto Wolff consistently expressing discontent when asked about performance—even though the results are decent—because the Brackley team still doesn’t understand, and therefore cannot resolve, the problems that have plagued its cars since 2022. Finally, there’s Ferrari, about which there’s little to say. The red team was expected to be McLaren’s main rival this season, but the SF-25 is showing unexpectedly serious limits, ending up as the fifth force in Miami. Emerging from this is Williams, surprisingly the fourth fastest team in Miami—solid, with a superb Albon in fifth and a Sainz close behind.

There’s a clear parallel here: in 2023, Red Bull won 22 out of 23 races partly due to its rivals underperforming, and Aston Martin stood out by doing a solid job and running at podium pace. Similarly—though top teams haven’t underdelivered as drastically as two years ago—Williams, which had openly stated it wasn’t focused on this season, is emerging just below the podium. This shows that McLaren’s dominance is also rooted in its rivals not performing perfectly.

Ferrari exposed in Miami
Ferrari’s weekend on American soil marks a particularly low point of the season—perhaps even worse than the double disqualification in China. But in reality, this Miami disaster was a tragedy foretold, and it’s hard to understand how the team didn’t see it coming. On a track where mechanical compromise is key to performance, a car weak in that very department was bound to suffer. Many issues were confirmed over the weekend, starting with the SF-25’s worsening performance from Sprint qualifying to Grand Prix qualifying. It clearly showed the car must be raised more than its rivals when accounting for 100 kg of fuel versus the 35 kg used in the Sprint.

The lack of mechanical grip was glaring both in qualifying and the race in the very slow, twisty middle sector. Even Fred Vasseur, between comments about untapped potential, admitted the car is chronically slow in slow corners. In the race, the car once again “came to life” in the second half—in that medium ride height range we know suits it—finally revealing a usable performance window. Indeed, average lap times in the second stint were similar to Russell and Verstappen, and better than Antonelli, but this only happens in an extremely narrow set of conditions.

With the car finally responding and on fresh medium tyres, Lewis Hamilton was also fired up, wanting to take advantage of the few good laps available. He didn’t hold back on the radio, fueling an already tricky situation on the red wall. In hindsight, had the situation been better managed—either letting Hamilton through immediately or not at all—Antonelli’s position could have been within reach of at least one Ferrari. But it wouldn’t have changed the overall perception of the weekend. Beyond that, the real issue for Ferrari appears to be a very complex mechanical-chassis problem that requires more than just minor updates—something structural, perhaps even unfixable under the budget cap. That likely explains Fred Vasseur’s calm tone when discussing upgrades—he clearly knows there is no magic formula yet at GES headquarters.

To top it off, while Maranello is “scratching its head” (as Hamilton put it), others, without such widespread issues, are continuing to develop their cars. And even if the SF-25 truly had “potential,” it’s no longer enough to compete behind McLaren—that’s the level we’re talking about. The customer Power Units of Bearman and Bortoleto blowing up in the race only add more rain to Maranello’s already soaked pavement. At this point, the only real prospect for this season is to try reacting in time for Barcelona and hope that a shift in competitive balance gives them a chance for a strong second half of the championship.