Hitting arguably the lowest point in Ferrari’s season as neither Lewis Hamilton nor Charles Leclerc progressed to Q3 at Imola, the first of Ferrari’s home circuits, Fred Vasseur has defended the design team led by Loic Serra.

Instead, he puts the SF-25’s weaknesses down to decisions made prior to Serra’s arrival in October last year, although he stopped short of blaming former technical director Enrico Cardile.

Ferrari boss: ‘We probably made mistakes with the car’

In a season in which the Ferrari team-mates are still chasing a first Grand Prix win, Hamilton even a first Grand Prix podium, Ferrari suffered an embarrassing double Q2 elimination in qualifying for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix on Saturday.

Neither Leclerc nor Hamilton had the pace to progress, bumped out of qualifying as former Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz, now with Williams, topped the timesheet in Q2.

“Devastated. I feel just gutted, I guess,” Hamilton told the media, including PlanetF1.com, of his first qualifying as a Ferrari driver on Italian soil.

“I felt like that car [was good]. The setup was just right, the brakes was working, everything was kind of in place – and we just can’t go quicker.”

Leclerc also issued a damning verdict on the SF-25’s performance, telling Sky F1: “You can always do a little bit more with a lap and improve quite a few things, but we are just P-nowhere at the moment.

“There’s not enough performance in the car. There’s just not the potential that we will hope inside this car at the moment.”

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It’s not the first time the team-mates have rued a lack of speed and even a lack of potential.

And it begs the question, where does the blame lie?

While some have pointed fingers at Ferrari’s new technical director Serra, who joined the team from Mercedes, Vasseur has defended him as “90 per cent” of the car was defined before Serra joined the team in October last year.

That would turn the focus, and the blame game, to former Ferrari tech boss Cardile although he left in July and left a vacuum that Ferrari announced Vasseur would oversee in the interim.

“When Loic arrived in Maranello six months ago, the current car was already defined, let’s say, ninety per cent. Then, of course, it depends on each individual element, but the basic design decisions had already been made,” Vasseur told Marca.

“I’m talking about the weight distribution, the wheelbase, the overall concept, etc. It’s something that affects all teams when the technical leadership changes.”

But, he added: “95 per cent of the team is the same as the one that participated in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 projects. I am convinced that if a project has problems, it does not mean that the structure does not work.

“I have great confidence in our team; We know we have to improve, but that’s a constant in motorsport. Even if you’re in first place, you know you have to keep improving; otherwise, you expose yourself to attacks from your rivals.

“Looking back on this year, we probably made mistakes with the car; we have to do better.”

Ferrari though, won’t abandon the development of the F1 2025 car to focus entirely on 2026 with its all-new technical regulations regulation.

“Often, at the end of race weekends, we find ourselves with the feeling that we haven’t squeezed the most out of the car, and until we have that feeling I can’t say that I know the exact potential of the project. That’s why I think there are still signs of improvement,” he said.

After six Grands Prix, Ferrari are fourth in the Constructors’ Championship, 152 points down on McLaren, while Leclerc and Hamilton are fifth and seventh in the Drivers’ standings. They trail Oscar Piastri by 78 and 90 points respectively.

Vasseur is hoping they can add to that tally in Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and given the Tifosi something to celebrate.

“It will be up to us to try and see what we can do,” he said. “Even if we had good race pace on Friday, here is not the easiest place to overtake so it will be a challenging afternoon and we will probably have to take some risks, specifically in terms of the strategy.

“We will focus on that now and try and do our best for the Tifosi.

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