Ferrari: key signs that suggest SF-25 car is better than what was seen in Australia. Ferrari starts the 2025 Formula 1 season with an undoubtedly disappointing performance.

Ferrari starts the 2025 Formula 1 season with an undoubtedly disappointing performance, affected by an unexpected lack of pace, strategic uncertainty and some driving errors. While there are few doubts about how the Australian Grand Prix weekend played out at the 5.278-kilometre Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit in Melbourne, the discussion is different for the SF-25. The pace shown in Australia does not align with the expectations beforehand and with what was seen on track during Friday’s free practice sessions. At least two clues suggest that the Maranello team’s overall package is much closer to McLaren, even without questioning the superiority of the world champions.

The Australian Grand Prix result was influenced by strategy and driving errors, but looking ahead, the performances at Albert Park raise some questions. On intermediate tires, Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, despite being the only one with clear air in the first stint, was the fourth-best car on track, behind George Russell, Max Verstappen, and the two McLaren MCL39 cars of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. For years, Maranello’s single-seaters have struggled in similar conditions, and this time, a general lack of optimization of the aerodynamic package compounded the issue. Lewis Hamilton confirmed that they did not get the car into the right window and also does not believe the SF-25 is as far off as it appeared last Sunday and the previous day in qualifying.

On Saturday, Ferrari particularly struggled in Q3, improving by just 72 thousandths of a second from Q2, compared to McLaren’s three-tenths and Mercedes’ two and a half tenths. Charles Leclerc said that the car changed quite a bit between Q2 and Q3 and that he did not have confidence. According to his Maranello teammate, the wind direction and temperature drop altered the balance. If that were the case, the concern is that the SF-25 might suffer from an overly narrow operating window, similar to Mercedes in 2024, which lost competitiveness with even the slightest environmental variation. However, there is suspicion that Ferrari was already at the edge of its operating range beforehand.

The Red car showed the least improvement from the second free practice session to Q2, gaining just six-tenths compared to McLaren’s 11 and Max Verstappen’s 15. These struggles reflect the drivers’ feelings, with their dissatisfaction on Saturday contrasting with the great confidence they had on Friday, when Charles Leclerc openly aimed for pole position, a major clue about the car’s potential. The subsequent changes led to a decline in balance, causing the car to slide and overheat the tires, which was inevitable with the soft compound and 40°C track temperatures, particularly affecting performance in the third sector.

Charles Leclerc admitted after qualifying that they had done the right thing and had to lose some performance. The first hypothesis is that the Maranello team’s engineers and technicians sought greater stability and mechanical grip at the expense of aerodynamics in anticipation of rain, a theory seemingly contradicted by Sunday’s race pace. However, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur had already emphasized on Friday the importance of anticipating the track’s evolution. Saturday’s forecast predicted temperatures 10 degrees celsius higher than the first day, which might have influenced setup choices. However, the cloudy sky kept the track temperature stable, potentially nullifying the adjustments.

There is also the hypothesis that Ferrari raised the car after detecting excessive wear on the floor, compromising the initial setup baseline. This theory gains credibility considering that at the start of the 2025 Formula 1 season, predictive models for plank wear are still being refined, partly due to limited experience with the new suspension. Regardless of the nature of the sacrifice made, the SF-25 on Saturday and Sunday was not the same well-balanced and tire-friendly car seen at the beginning of the Australian weekend.

Frederic Vasseur summarized after the race that it was much more indicative to look at what they had done from Friday morning until Q2 rather than what had emerged in Sunday’s conditions. In his two years at Maranello, the Team Principal has always been honest about problems, giving credibility to his perspective on what happened at the Albert Park circuit. Everything suggests that Melbourne was a misstep, like others seen in the past. The difference is that, being the first race, the public fears that the issue is not execution but the project itself.

The French manager reiterated that he believed the real picture was what they had seen on Friday and Saturday, but even in that case, McLaren was a step ahead. The goal for the next races will be to maximize the package’s potential and the points haul. Only in this way will it be possible to quantify the actual gap to the world champions, assess whether it can be closed through development, and determine whether to believe in the 2025 Formula 1 title dream.

The pre-race statements are another sign of the discrepancy between the Melbourne result and internal expectations. Both before and after testing, Maranello’s drivers openly spoke of the world championship as a goal. This attitude is quite unusual considering the caution developed after the great disappointment of 2023 and is justifiable only with the conviction of having a strong Formula 1 project. It is possible that McLaren’s leap forward exceeded all predictions, as, on the eve of the final year of ground-effect regulations, with cars nearing their limits, major progress was not expected. However, the confidence displayed in statements may stem not from the SF-25 itself but from its development potential.

Switching to a pull-rod front suspension is akin to taking one step back before taking two forward. Aerodynamically, it required deconstructing the previous airflow structure and building a new one, making it difficult to immediately match and improve on the results of the old concept developed over years. Technical director Loic Serra said in February that the hope was for the development pace to be faster than at the end of last season. Updates will determine how valid this hope is, but before then, the SF-25 single-seater must prove that the gap to McLaren is not what was seen in Melbourne.

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