Lewis Hamilton has joined Charles Leclerc at Ferrari in the Briton’s quest for an eighth Formula 1 title as the Scuderia seek their first champion driver since the 2007 season.
Ferrari are the pride of an entire country with the whole of Italy backing the Prancing Horse. But the Scuderia have not boasted a champion driver for their passionate Tifosi to celebrate since Kimi Raikkonen denied Hamilton the title in the Briton’s rookie campaign for McLaren.
Not since 2008 have Ferrari won the Formula 1 constructors’ championship, either. But they sealed second place last term and only lost out to McLaren by 14 points at the season-finale in Abu Dhabi. Now, Ferrari even arguably have the strongest line-up in Hamilton and Leclerc.
Ferrari think they’ve fixed their rear downforce problem at high speed with the SF-25
More than 5,000 fans also flocked to see Hamilton and Leclerc lapping the SF-25 at Ferrari’s Fiorano test circuit on Wednesday. Leclerc nearly broke the Fiorano track record in the SF-25 with a 56.06-second lap as the Scuderia enjoyed uninterrupted running during a shakedown.
Hamilton was 0.8s slower around Fiorano than Leclerc in the SF-25 when he got his first laps with Ferrari’s 2025 F1 car. It was also the team’s first chance to see if their minor changes to the SF-24 were beneficial before the official pre-season test in Bahrain on February 26-28.
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The SF-25 only has little changes from Ferrari’s 2024 car. Yet Motor Sport Magazine reports chiefs in Maranello are confident the Scuderia have ‘released the bottleneck shortfall of rear downforce’ that affected the SF-24 at high speeds by improving the airflow path of their car.
Ferrari have only made small tweaks to their 2025 F1 car as the SF-24 was often the fastest machine on the 2024 grid in low-speed corners. Their 2024 car’s big weakness was in high-speed turns, so Ferrari have adopted pull-rod front suspension and moved the cockpit back.
Whilst subtle, moving to pull-rod suspension and repositioning their cockpit more rearwards allowed Ferrari to improve the airflow path through the suspension towards the floor of the SF-25. But the key benefit of the changes is improving controlling the car’s front ride height.
F1’s Bahrain pre-season test will show if Ferrari have fixed their 2025 car
Staging a shakedown at Fiorano gave Ferrari an early chance to test their systems and they had a clean day with the SF-25. But it was not an indicative session, so Ferrari are waiting for the Bahrain test to push the SF-25 and see where their new car may be in the pecking order.
The only official pre-season test will also offer the Scuderia a much clearer picture of if their tweaks to improve their car’s high-speed cornering ability paid off. It will not be vital for the Australian Grand Prix on March 16 but will be at the Chinese Grand Prix just one week after.
