Despite sitting in second place in the 2025 F1 constructors’ championship, Ferrari have been subpar in comparison to their rivals and current front-runners, McLaren, who just pipped them to the title last season.
Lewis Hamilton’s addition to Ferrari hasn’t been as fruitful as first expected, with the seven-time world champion currently on the longest podium-less streak of his career.
His Monegasque teammate has been slightly more impressive, with Charles Leclerc proving to be more flexible when it comes to adapting his driving style to eke the most performance out of the SF-25.
Position Drivers’ Championship PointsPts 1 284 2 275 3 187 4 172 5 151 6 109
Ferrari promised Hamilton a competitive car in pre-season, and has yet to deliver on that promise to the 40-year-old as he languishes 42 points below Leclerc in the drivers’ standings.
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McLaren’s MCL39 has been ‘magic’ in wet-weather conditions during the 2025 F1 season
Speaking to The Race, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur touched upon the reasons why the Woking-based racing outfit has been so much better than the Prancing Horse this season, highlighting the areas of the team’s 2025 F1 challenger that have been tough to replicate in their own car.
“I don’t want to speak about the others,” Vasseur said. “I think McLaren is champion – it has mega performance on tyre management. And in the wet, for example, they are magic.
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“But being focused on ourselves, we lost a little bit of ground with the disqualification at the beginning. We had to take a margin. And the sensitivity of the ride height on these cars, it’s huge.
“Each millimetre is one position on the grid. So it means that if you start to have to be safe because you are not in full control, then it’s impacting massively on the performance.”
Vasseur was scared of changing one aspect of the Ferrari, highlighting the rear suspension upgrade the team brought to the Belgian GP in July after leadership figures at the Prancing Horse were concerned about the team’s recent results.
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Ferrari have had a battle on their hands with Lewis Hamilton to fix his issues with the SF-25
Ferrari engineers are adamant that Hamilton needs to change his driving style in order to extract the best performance out of their 2025 challenger, something that Juan Pablo Montoya pointed out as being an issue.
The Colombian’s point is that the British driver is a seven-time world champion, so the fact that his driving style has brought him success in the past means that the team should instead be trying to cater to it rather than force him to adapt.
Position Constructors’ Standings PointsPts 1 559 2 260 3 236 4 194
The aforementioned rear suspension upgrade didn’t have the intended increase in performance for Hamilton in Belgium, as Ferrari engineers also had to change the dampers on the Briton’s car for him to gel properly with it.
With there only being ten races left of the 2025 campaign once the summer break concludes, time is running out for Hamilton to get comfortable in the car before F1’s 2026 regulations completely overhaul the spec.