2025 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[Sergej]

I wonder how the canceled Baku floor fits in to all this.

maybe they realized they didn't hit the targets with the suspension and they canceled the floor to save budget ? I think AR made an article about this, but it was (again) under paywall.

[deadhead]

Seems pretty clear that the aerodynamics of this car (and the 2024 one) are indeed very good but they just lack the ability to build a mechanical platform that can take advantage of it, and it seems that Loïc Serra has perhaps failed to remedy the situation.

Luckily for that particular department the aero loads for next year will be much lower and the aero platform won’t require such precise control overall so they might be okay?

I hope the aero department can continue to deliver like they have been…

[dialtone]

Article from Autoracer.

All teams “play” with tire pressures to protect skid block wear. In Budapest, there was an “inexplicable” collapse: data shows Leclerc was one second slower than the original plan.

The SF-25’s rear mechanical update was aimed at improving setup compromise, mainly by providing braking stability and better corner entry to a car overly unbalanced by an unpredictable rear end. The evolution of the rear layout, including wishbone geometry and updated internal components, delivered positive results relative to the set goals. In Hungary, pole position probably wouldn’t have been possible without the improved confidence the car can now give, with Leclerc already benefitting compared to a Lewis still in the learning phase with the previous platform. Managing floor wear will continue to force the team to seek compromises until the end of the year. The Budapest plan to keep at least one McLaren behind, taking advantage of a track layout unfavorable for overtaking, was working — until the final Hard tire set caused a collapse beyond expectations.

Reliable sources say a team typically increases pressures by up to 1.5 PSI to gain 1 mm of ride height in final stints, a practice that has become common since these cars’ downforce has grown exponentially since 2022. It’s a compromise, however, with negative effects on downforce and grip. With the final Hard set, Leclerc’s SF-25 went “out of window,” ending up one second slower than expected and losing 20 seconds in the final stint compared to simulations.

Ferrari has changed its dynamic behavior since 2024, and the floor now makes contact in unexpected areas: was the design mistake in not properly assessing how the 2025 suspension architecture would affect the floor? The SF-24 and SF-25 are aerodynamically related, but the same is not true for the chassis and suspension.

The thinking behind project 677 involved a deep mechanical redesign intended to unlock the famous aerodynamic potential — a technical choice that turned out to be “fatal.” The switch to a pull-rod front suspension in the final year of these regulations was meant to be a “calculated risk,” but it’s clear mistakes were made from the start of its development, as the car now strikes the plank with forces and in areas unforeseen by simulations, due to a lack of predictive correlation. Protecting the skid involves many measures beyond the well-known lift and coast, including raising tire pressures — something that we know for certain was done in Budapest, and which triggered the crippling of Leclerc’s No. 16 SF-25.

I cut out the first part of the article which was about Vasseur's renewal, but in summary it just said the team decided stability was important and Vasseur had the full backing of the drivers.

There are also some illustrations by Giuliana in the original article which I can't copy over due to their reprinting policy.

So is the source from Ferrari or did autoracer talk with another team and was told about this 1.5psi increase? And did Ferrari just always do this so far, and it just happened to unravel like that in Hungary? They also write as if every team does it ‘a team typically’, do they?

[ScuderiaLeo]

So is the source from Ferrari or did autoracer talk with another team and was told about this 1.5psi increase? And did Ferrari just always do this so far, and it just happened to unravel like that in Hungary? They also write as if every team does it ‘a team typically’, do they?

How I interpreted it: raising tire pressures is a common way teams raise the car's ride height. It doesn't mean all the teams are constantly doing it, but that if the problem occurs this is often how teams solve it.

They don't usually mention a source at all if their source is Ferrari. So them mentioning it means they likely spoke to another team.

[Xyz22]

The chassis story was a huge lie. How could they know there was damage in the chassis without even checking the car? If they saw a downforce loss why they didn't tell Charles who was fuming like a mad man inside the car?

This is why there hasn't been any statement about the chassis after the weekend.

[dialtone]

The chassis story was a huge lie. How could they know there was damage in the chassis without even checking the car? If they saw a downforce loss why they didn't tell Charles who was fuming like a mad man inside the car?

This is why there hasn't been any statement about the chassis after the weekend.

While it appears to be that way, it seems they didn’t know what was going on.

The tire pressure change has been a routine operation, potentially run by other teams as well.

That the car fell out the window so hard was so unexpected that made them think of chassis damage. They probably did this in all races to preserve plank, there probably wasn’t anything special about how it happened here.

So while this wasn’t chassis damage, this wasn’t plank wear either, the car went off a cliff in ways they didn’t expect it would have.

This is the only way I can set the facts straight with the interpretation from ScuderiaLeo.

[Xyz22]

The chassis story was a huge lie. How could they know there was damage in the chassis without even checking the car? If they saw a downforce loss why they didn't tell Charles who was fuming like a mad man inside the car?

This is why there hasn't been any statement about the chassis after the weekend.

While it appears to be that way, it seems they didn’t know what was going on.

The tire pressure change has been a routine operation, potentially run by other teams as well.

That the car fell out the window so hard was so unexpected that made them think of chassis damage. They probably did this in all races to preserve plank, there probably wasn’t anything special about how it happened here.

So while this wasn’t chassis damage, this wasn’t plank wear either, the car went off a cliff in ways they didn’t expect it would have.

This is the only way I can set the facts straight with the interpretation from ScuderiaLeo.

I agree.
But there is something we are all forgetting. Specifically, there has been a team radio where it's absolutely clear that Leclerc kind of expected this disaster. Maybe not of that magnitude but he knew that what decided before the race made the car absolutely impossible to drive, i.e. it was something they knew was going to happen.
Trust me, they used the "chassis" as a general "reasons" to avoid specific questions by the journalists. It's clear something related to the insane limitations of this car which they know about and can not be fixed fully (for every track, situation, etc.).

[dialtone]

Could be, the autoracer article says that they predicted 0.3s penalty from raising the car, 1.5s is way off. With just 0.3s LEC could have actually maybe brought the car home winning with the top speed advantage. So yeah something was planned in that loss, the 1.5s wasn’t planned.

The AR article hints at just leaving it there unresolved and focusing on 2026.

[yooogurt]

It seems to me that the brakeboosted version is close to the truth, that the team did not expect to be in clean air from the start (they lost half a second to McLaren in practice), and set up for dirty air, which is why in the first two stints the wear of the plank was more than expected, and perhaps they had to increase the pressure on the last stint more than usual.

[deadhead]

It will be interesting to see how many times the car will “fall off a cliff” like that until the end of the season since they are apparently giving up on fixing it.

[cplchanb]

It will be interesting to see how many times the car will “fall off a cliff” like that until the end of the season since they are apparently giving up on fixing it.

source?

[Hammerfist]

It seems to me that the brakeboosted version is close to the truth, that the team did not expect to be in clean air from the start (they lost half a second to McLaren in practice), and set up for dirty air, which is why in the first two stints the wear of the plank was more than expected, and perhaps they had to increase the pressure on the last stint more than usual.

That would be wild. With the mclarens around them you’d think they would expect plenty of clean air. Mclaren was expected to pull away from them if not at the start but at the pit stops with an undercut. Sorry but I’ve heard all sort of theories I just don’t buy this one at all.

Looks like no one really knows what happened. But we do know leclerc foresaw that trouble lied ahead and he believed he could have managed the situation better had they let him.Whatever it was. Everything else is just wild speculation.

[catent]

It seems to me that the brakeboosted version is close to the truth, that the team did not expect to be in clean air from the start (they lost half a second to McLaren in practice), and set up for dirty air, which is why in the first two stints the wear of the plank was more than expected, and perhaps they had to increase the pressure on the last stint more than usual.

That would be wild. With the mclarens around them you’d think they would expect plenty of clean air. Mclaren was expected to pull away from them if not at the start but at the pit stops with an undercut. Sorry but I’ve heard all sort of theories I just don’t buy this one at all.

Looks like no one really knows what happened. But we do know leclerc foresaw that trouble lied ahead and he believed he could have managed the situation better had they let him.Whatever it was. Everything else is just wild speculation.

I am not sure we can even state the bolded with much certainty/clarity, because Leclerc (post-race) softened his stance and indicated there was an issue going on that he was not aware of during the race.

That, to me, suggested/implied that his frustrations being communicated via the radio (during the race) were based on limited information, and his tone seemed less frustrated / more understanding following the race (when he presumably had been made aware of this new information that he did not know during the race).

But why would the team withhold this information from Leclerc during the race? It makes little sense. And while I do not know Charles personally, I genuinely have a hard time believing that he could lie with a completely straight-face and without missing a beat; his response about a chassis issue seemed authentic, and when he has been asked about things previously that the team did not want him to discuss, he has explicitly said just that, "the team has asked us not to discuss it".

The whole situation is rather bizarre.

[yooogurt]

That would be wild. With the mclarens around them you’d think they would expect plenty of clean air. Mclaren was expected to pull away from them if not at the start but at the pit stops with an undercut. Sorry but I’ve heard all sort of theories I just don’t buy this one at all.

Driving in clean air behind the McLarens and in front of them are two different things. In the first case, you can slow down, use lico and other methods to protect the plank. In the second, you have to drive at full speed.
ps.

[ScuderiaLeo]

It will be interesting to see how many times the car will “fall off a cliff” like that until the end of the season since they are apparently giving up on fixing it.

source?

We've already been told by the team they're not working on the 2025 car anymore aside from simulator work by the drivers.

Plus the Baku floor was canceled not because of money but because they didn't see a big benefit.

It's not exactly true they gave up entirely on it, they'll still bring something to Monza most likely and make small adjustments as they understand the car better. But we won't be getting any new major components according to the team.