It has been another headline-filled season for Ferrari, with seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton arriving, scrutiny over a planned title bid that did not materialise, and team boss Fred Vasseur subsequently having to navigate a barrage of speculation about his future. So, where do the legendary team stand at the summer break? Here is their half term report\u2026<\/p>\n
Best finish<\/p>\n
Charles Leclerc \u2013 2nd in Monaco<\/p>\n
Ferrari<\/a> came agonisingly close to ending their title drought (which stretches back to 2008) last season, with just 14 points separating them and World Champions McLaren after the Abu Dhabi finale \u2013 but momentum was building and hopes were high for 2025.<\/p>\n As it has transpired, though, Ferrari are without a Grand Prix win across 14 weekends so far, while McLaren turned an already super-competitive package into an even stronger one to bag 11 victories between Australia and Hungary and leave scraps for their rivals.<\/p>\n It means Charles Leclerc<\/a>\u2019s run to second on home soil in Monaco marks Ferrari\u2019s best Sunday result, ahead of four more of his own podium finishes \u2013 not including the Sprint sessions and Hamilton\u2019s breakthrough pole position\/victory double in China.<\/p>\n Qualifying head-to-head<\/p>\n Leclerc 10-4 Hamilton<\/p>\n Leclerc was out of the spotlight over the winter, given all the attention and focus on Hamilton<\/a>\u2019s blockbuster switch from Mercedes, but it is the Monegasque who has comfortably led the Ferrari intra-team battle over both one lap and a race distance up to this point.<\/p>\n Going \u201cmore extreme\u201d with the SF-25\u2019s set-up early in the season, as he explored every possible way of cutting the gap to pace-setters McLaren<\/a>, Leclerc was only out-qualified by Hamilton once across their first eight main grid-deciding sessions as team mates.<\/p>\n Hamilton appeared to turn a corner mid-season with a car he has often found to be \u201con a knife-edge\u201d, starting ahead of Leclerc in three out of four races, before Q2 and Q1 exits in Belgium and Hungary (where Leclerc claimed pole) triggered his \u201cuseless\u201d comments<\/a>.<\/p>\n Race head-to-head<\/p>\n Leclerc 11-2 Hamilton*<\/p>\n Leclerc\u2019s advantage is even bigger on paper when it comes to race days, having lost out to his new team mate across a Grand Prix just twice \u2013 when Hamilton finished fourth on Ferrari\u2019s home soil at Imola and bagged another P4 finish on his home turf at Silverstone.<\/p>\n It is, of course, worth noting that 2025 marks Leclerc\u2019s seventh year in the same environment, having stepped up to Ferrari after his debut 2018 season with Sauber, while Hamilton has had all sorts to get used to on and off the track since arriving at Maranello in January.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a huge change for Lewis in terms of culture, in terms of people around him, in terms of software, in terms of car, in terms of every single topic,\u201d Team Principal Vasseur recently told F1.com<\/a>, adding that he and Hamilton perhaps \u201cunderestimated\u201d the challenge.<\/p>\n *No mark included for the Chinese Grand Prix, from which both drivers were disqualified<\/p>\n Best moment<\/p>\n Around those struggles, Hamilton has shown flashes of the driver who has scored more poles and wins than anyone else in F1 history, and who is tied with Michael Schumacher for the most world titles achieved \u2013 the task now being to unlock that pace consistently.<\/p>\n Back in March, Hamilton and the SF-25 suddenly clicked at the Shanghai International Circuit en route to P1 in Sprint Qualifying and the Sprint itself \u2013 landing an emotional maiden Ferrari victory<\/a> and arguably achieving the team\u2019s best moment of 2025 so far.<\/p>\n Worst moment<\/p>\n Sadly for Hamilton and Ferrari, the following day\u2019s Grand Prix in China represented a thud back to Earth, with the Briton and Leclerc \u2013 who had already lost some ground in the main Qualifying session \u2013 being disqualified from respective P5 and P6 finishes<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hamilton was excluded after post-race checks found that his car had exceeded plank wear limits, while Leclerc suffered the same fate due to his being underweight, ending what had been an otherwise morale-boosting weekend in painful circumstances.<\/p>\n Leclerc\u2019s pole-to-P4 slump in Hungary also made a late shout to be included on the list \u2013 the elation of that result turning to huge frustration<\/a> when his victory push got derailed by an unspecified car problem and ultimately left him more than 40 seconds adrift.<\/p>\n Going forward<\/p>\n As mentioned during the introduction of this half term report, Ferrari had their eyes fixed on a championship challenge heading into the 2025 campaign, but those hopes were soon dashed thanks to McLaren\u2019s imperious speed and consistency.<\/p>\n Around the time of the Canadian Grand Prix, Italian media outlets started to report that Vasseur \u2013 who joined Ferrari in 2023 \u2013 was on shaky ground, a situation the Frenchman described as \u201cdisrespectful\u201d to the team, and one he moved on from to pen a new deal<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, with McLaren boasting more than double the points of their nearest rivals, Vasseur and Ferrari\u2019s readjusted target is simple: build on recent updates<\/a>, secure P2 in the Teams\u2019 Championship over Mercedes and Red Bull and nail the 2026 rules reset<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody in the company is aligned on this project,\u201d Vasseur insisted before the summer break. \u201cThis is probably the best feeling when you have a goal and everybody is convinced that we can achieve it, we can go for it, and we are all pushing in the same direction.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a secret that Ferrari want to win again, but we have a target, and the goal is very, very clear. We\u2019ll put everything [in] to achieve it. We did a decent step forward everywhere, but now we need perhaps a bit more time to put everything together, and the 2026 challenge [is] a good opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been another headline-filled season for Ferrari, with seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton arriving, scrutiny over a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-89264","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-f1","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}