Crashing and burning
Mustafa Imran, Contributor
After an entertaining end to the 2024 season that saw Scuderia Ferrari narrowly miss out on the championship, the tifosi had high hopes for 2025, especially after signing seven-time world champion Sir Lewis Hamilton and the debut of their fundamentally different SF25. The team was expecting to challenge for both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ titles. However, the reality of the 2025 season has been far from what Ferrari, its fans and its drivers had hoped for. A combination of underperformance, technical issues, and missed opportunities has left the team facing yet another disappointing season.
A rocky start to the season
The season opener in Melbourne was foreboding for the Rosso racecars. Ferrari struggled in the unpredictable weather conditions as both Charles Leclerc and Hamilton found themselves stuck in midfield and backmarker traffic. Poor tire strategy saw them miss out on a potential podium, relegating Leclerc to P8 and Hamilton to P10 on his debut for Ferrari—statistically one of the worst results for a debuting Ferrari driver.
The first Sprint Race weekend took place at the Chinese Grand Prix, and it initially looked promising for Ferrari, with Hamilton securing pole position and winning the sprint race. This was a false dawn, though, as the Italian team had their worst performance of the season. Both Ferrari drivers suffered from poor pace on track, but even if they could have driven faster, the car’s awful setup led to technical infringements that saw both Leclerc and Hamilton disqualified after the race’s conclusion.
This highlighted the ongoing issues with the SF25’s radical new suspension design, which had an extremely narrow optimal operating window. It became clear that Ferrari’s attempt to radically overhaul its car had not paid off.
Upgrades and setbacks
As the season progressed, Ferrari introduced a series of upgrades to improve the SF25’s performance, the first of which came at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Centred around the underfloor, Leclerc showed increased pace and secured a P4 finish—Ferrari’s best result of the season up until that point. Saudi Arabia followed, where Leclerc secured the team’s first podium of the year with a P3 finish. Despite these improvements, Ferrari’s pace was still inconsistent, with Hamilton failing to secure any top-three finishes, and wins continued to elude them entirely.
The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix provided a glimmer of hope when both Ferrari’s fought their way through the field, with Hamilton finishing P4 and Leclerc P6. It was Ferrari’s best race of the season in terms of overall points hauls, but still far from the championship-level team they wanted. Still, sitting in second place in the Constructors’ Championship behind only the ubiquitously dominant McLaren was not a bad place to be
The Belgian Grand Prix marked a crucial moment for Ferrari. The most important upgrade was meant to solve the SF25’s rear suspension issues, thus allowing the car to run lower to the ground and improve its pace. Unfortunately, the upgrade failed to deliver and the race ended up being another disappointment for the team. Leclerc finished in P5 while Hamilton crossed the line in P8—far from the turnaround Ferrari wanted.
The Hungaroring Heartbreak
The Hungarian Grand Prix appeared to be Ferrari’s best chance of securing a win. Leclerc started from pole and led the race for the majority of the first stint. An all-too-familiar Ferrari pit stop strategy issue allowed Lando Norris to pass for the lead and Leclerc eventually lost out to the championship leader, Oscar Piastri.
Then came a radio meltdown that further summed up Ferrari’s frustrations:
“I can feel what we discussed before the race. We need to discuss those things before doing them,” Leclerc said, referring to issues with the car’s chassis.
Team principal Fred Vasseur confirmed that Leclerc had been struggling with “severe chassis issues,” and it cost the team what could have been their first win of the season.
Typical of the rest of his 2025 performances, Hamilton’s race was uneventful, starting outside the top 10 and finishing outside the points. It was yet another forgettable race for the British driver in what had already been his worst season to date.
A Series of Misfortunes
As impossible as it may have seemed, the post-summer break races brought more disappointment for the tifosi. The Dutch Grand Prix held at Zandvoort saw Hamilton and Leclerc both suffer disastrous race weekends, as Hamilton slid into the wall and retired from the race while Leclerc crashed into the barriers after contact with Mercedes rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli. This resulted in a double DNF for Ferrari, but to make matters worse, Hamilton incurred a grid penalty for the following race in Monza, showing a rare mental lapse from the seven-time champion and further dampening Ferrari’s hopes.
The Italian team is known to perform well at their home race in Monza, having won there in 2024, but both Ferraris struggled there this year in a further showing of their incompetence this season. Despite Leclerc starting P4 and Hamilton starting P9, the duo lacked the pace to challenge the McLarens and Red Bulls as Leclerc finished P4 and Hamilton in P6—yet another finish outside the podium.
Azerbaijan: A Missed Opportunity
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was another missed opportunity for Ferrari. McLaren struggled through practice and qualifying, giving Ferrari a golden chance to steal their first race win of the season. However, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was on fire, having won in Italy after some key upgrades were installed on his car. Additionally, Hamilton’s decision to run on old tires in qualifying left him outside the top 10, and Leclerc crashed in Q3, meaning both drivers started further down the grid. Despite Piastri’s retirement, Ferrari could only manage a disappointing P7 and P8 finish as Verstappen won his second consecutive race, while Mercedes retook second place in the Constructors’ standings.
The Bigger Picture
As the 2025 season reaches its end, Ferrari finds itself in a difficult position—expensive new driver signing, Hamilton, has yet to finish on the podium and their ‘golden boy’ Leclerc, is extracting the car’s maximum potential, only to find himself unable to earn his first victory of the season. As a whole, the team has spent yet another season failing to capitalize on opportunities that could have seen them win races and challenge the top dogs. The SF25 was supposed to mark the dawn of a new era for Ferrari, but has been a horrible replay of the last 17 years since their most recent Constructors’ Championship.
This season exposed deep-rooted issues with the car’s design and development. Ferrari’s gamble to abandon their previous car philosophy in favour of a near-complete overhaul has not paid off, and now it seems that second place in the championship is the goal.
Looking ahead, rumours suggest that 2026 may not bring much relief. Ferrari’s failure to adapt to the changing landscape of Formula 1 and its inability to solve the SF25’s fundamental issues leave the team in a state of flux. Strategy issues and driver-mechanic conflicts make the team difficult to trust when it comes to making improvements, and with their Le Mans team proving to be vastly more successful than the F1 outfit, who knows how much the larger Ferrari company cares about their single-seater racing ambitions. For a team as storied and successful as Ferrari, it’s a situation that many fans and pundits would have never predicted.
Conclusion: A Team Adrift
The 2025 season has been a sad one for Ferrari. Their potential has been shattered by a series of team errors and blunders. With a new driver and a new car philosophy, the team is still struggling to find its footing in the final year of the ground effect era. Heading into the next set of regulation changes in 2026, it’s clear that Ferrari needs to make significant changes if it hopes to return to the front of the grid. With the 2025 season already beyond saving, the team will need to regroup before the 2026 season kicks off. For now, Ferrari seems lost in the past, desperately trying to catch up to their rivals and their old selves while failing to grasp the current nature of Formula 1.
