The SF-25, which Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will pilot this season, made its first run this Wednesday at Fiorano, with the hope that this F1 will allow the Scuderia to compete for world titles. We delve into the design of this single-seater, built on the delicate 2023 car and the improvements made to last year’s model.
There’s something akin to the alignment of planets. Or a sowing that finally yields good seeds. Lewis Hamilton arrives in Maranello at what seems like the perfect time. After following it during its first steps in late January, after watching it on Tuesday evening in its new livery in London, we were eager to see this mount that could put the Briton back on top, who has been in a slump since the Abu Dhabi 2021 catastrophe.
No matter if he had to, along with his boss Frédéric Vasseur and his teammate Charles Leclerc, endure an hour of traffic to leave the O2 Arena and reach the airport. It doesn’t matter if the night only began around four in the morning when the first run was scheduled for nine, the important thing was that everything went as planned. And this “collaudo” day (debugging in Italian) apparently went off without a hitch.
It is obviously too early to know if the machine is a rocket, but it is clear that this 2025 single-seater has an attractive pedigree that can only please Sir Lewis. On Tuesday, reigning champion Max Verstappen, the happy rival of 2021, had already identified it. “Lewis hasn’t lost his talent overnight,” he confided in London. “Give him a high-performance car and he will become a solid candidate for the 2025 title.”
The Ferrari 2025 on the track for the first time at Fiorano
Frédéric Vasseur, the head of the Scuderia
“The work done last year was essential. This way of reacting proves that our structure is well in place”
So, what about this SF-25? It has precisely what it takes to believe in it, because it was built, on the ashes of its predecessors, by seeking to erase the defects and only take the best.
When in January 2023, Vasseur took over the management of the Scuderia, he discovered a completely failed single-seater. In addition to having to learn the workings of the immense organization that is Gestione Sportiva, the Frenchman had to deal with this blatant failure for which he was not responsible. Rebuilding some confidence, adding some cohesion, and above all finding the path to victory was therefore the first step, completed by Carlos Sainz’s brilliant performance in Singapore, the only non-Red Bull success that season.”With the team restructured, it was time to tackle the car. The SF-23, brilliant on Saturdays, lost its luster on Sundays. The rocket on a lap turned into a pachyderm in the race, eating its tires and its performance. The 2024 single-seater went in an opposite direction to allow its two drivers to find their way back to regular victories (five wins for Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr). A big slump in the heart of last summer almost ruined everything when the innovations brought to Barcelona slowed the car down. Two months of research to understand where the mistake came from and everything started moving forward again in the fall. “The work done last year was essential,” Vasseur recalled on Wednesday during the launch of the SF-25. “This way of reacting proves that our structure is well in place.”
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All that was left was to design a champion’s single-seater, armed with all this acquired knowledge. The SF-25 retains “the same operating philosophy,” as Loïc Serra, the new technical director, also French, pointed out. Even if some changes have been made, like the rear wing that looks like the McLaren’s from 2024 or the pull-rod front suspension, similar to Red Bull’s. Not a stupid copy but rather a way to optimize the airflow and “offer a larger development range,” according to the Frenchman, who was poached from Mercedes last fall and is a good friend of Red Bull’s technical director, Pierre Waché.
Charles Leclerc
“I’ve never seen such a good team spirit since I arrived”
The stage is set and the machine is clearly in place. All that’s left is to make everything work well. Because in this formidable equation, one must not neglect the final factor, that of the Leclerc case. Proof of his importance, he was given the honor of being the first to drive this SF-25. The Monegasque will clearly not be there to let his elder shine and, if the car can finally offer him a chance at the title, he will seize it without shame. Vettel had already paid the price for the kid arriving at Scuderia to bite the champion right away.
“I’ve always thought that a team can only function with a healthy emulation between its drivers, a positive competition to pull performance upwards,” Vasseur concluded. And if tensions were to arise, the Frenchman would not be alone in managing the problem. Jérôme d’Ambrosio, also recruited from Mercedes, came to assist the boss in managing, among other things, this kind of problem. He was thus at the first dinner with Hamilton and Leclerc at the end of January to strengthen team cohesion. “I’ve never seen such a good team spirit since I arrived,” Leclerc was pleased to say.
Everything is therefore in place. There is one week left to dream, until the first tests in Bahrain, that the machine will work as desired, and less than a month to check, in Melbourne (14-16 March), that the planets are really well aligned for Ferrari, Hamilton, and Leclerc.
