2025 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[SoulPancake13]

I have faith in the team

Because they dominated from 1999 to 2006-ish?

I have faith in them to at least course correct somewhat because they have the past 2 seasons as well. No one is fighting McLaren this year

[ScuderiaLeo]

Yea they usually are good on sprint weekends so we'll see this week. They were on pace with the rest of the pack in the long runs in fp3 and were less than tenth away during quali until the last push laps in Q3 where neither improved(according to ham, temps dropped and they did the same type of outlaps they were doing when the rears were overheating and that put the tires out of the right window) and then were nowhere in the race but the Ferrari hasnt really been good in wet/mixed conditions, at least last year it wasnt and apparently Ferrari got the ride height wrong as well and raised it too much? so lets see in China where its gonna be hot.

Has any outlet said why they raised the ride height so much? It doesn't make sense to me, it didn't look low on Friday. And no other team has been reported to have done this except Ferrari.

Tyre warmup was the reason that Ferrari was awful in the rain last year. I wonder if they are suffering from the same issue this year.

I think the fact that Hamilton was pretty bad today is pretty concerning. I always thought that a major reason that Ferrari were bad in the rain is that Leclerc and Sainz simply aren't great wet weather drivers, but Hamilton is arguably one of the best wet weather drivers ever and still couldn't make the car work.

It seems like both the SF-24 and SF-25 are horrible in the rain, and like Leclerc might actually be a pretty good wet weather driver.

Leclerc doesn't seem to be very good or bad at wet weather driving. He's just okay. And that would be fine if the car was competent in the wet but it isn't. A car as mediocre as Ferrari's are in the rain needs a truly exceptional wet weather driver to bring it anywhere, and in my opinion the only driver that fits the bill for this is Verstappen.

I will say Leclerc is as always really good at starts. Wet or dry it's one of his most consistent strengths.

[bananapeel23]

Leclerc doesn't seem to be very good or bad at wet weather driving. He's just okay. And that would be fine if the car was competent in the wet but it isn't. A car as mediocre as Ferrari's are in the rain needs a truly exceptional wet weather driver to bring it anywhere, and in my opinion the only driver that fits the bill for this is Verstappen.

I will say Leclerc is as always really good at starts. Wet or dry it's one of his most consistent strengths.

Leclerc doesn't seem super fast in the wet, but he definitely gets some good starts and is really quite good at keeping people behind him in the wet. I remember how he was the only driver to really hold up Verstappen in Brazil last year despite the horrible pace of the Ferrari there.

He also rarely makes any severe mistakes in the rain. Most of the Ferrari disasterclasses in the rain have had very little to do with Leclerc himself and everything to do with Ferrari strategy. He had a small spin today and a small off in Brazil 2024, but those are really the only rain mistakes from him I can recall and neither of them were what I'd consider to be severe.

China 2024 was fine. Canada 2024 was horrific strategy and obvious engine issues. Silverstone 2024 wasn't great, but strategy is what caused him to finish out of the points. Brazil 2024 was a pretty solid performance all things considered.

[SoulPancake13]

I don't care much about the discussion about Charles in wet weather because the car has been --- in the wet since Monaco 2022. The main issue is the complete lack of pace. Even Max today, "the greatest" in the wet would have finished 40 seconds behind McLaren if it wasn't for safety cars(actually before the SCs Russell and Leclerc were matching Verstappen). The car is still the biggest factor in any condition.

[Luscion]

Yea they usually are good on sprint weekends so we'll see this week. They were on pace with the rest of the pack in the long runs in fp3 and were less than tenth away during quali until the last push laps in Q3 where neither improved(according to ham, temps dropped and they did the same type of outlaps they were doing when the rears were overheating and that put the tires out of the right window) and then were nowhere in the race but the Ferrari hasnt really been good in wet/mixed conditions, at least last year it wasnt and apparently Ferrari got the ride height wrong as well and raised it too much? so lets see in China where its gonna be hot.

Has any outlet said why they raised the ride height so much? It doesn't make sense to me, it didn't look low on Friday. And no other team has been reported to have done this except Ferrari.

Tyre warmup was the reason that Ferrari was awful in the rain last year. I wonder if they are suffering from the same issue this year.

I think the fact that Hamilton was pretty bad today is pretty concerning. I always thought that a major reason that Ferrari were bad in the rain is that Leclerc and Sainz simply aren't great wet weather drivers, but Hamilton is arguably one of the best wet weather drivers ever and still couldn't make the car work.

It seems like both the SF-24 and SF-25 are horrible in the rain, and like Leclerc might actually be a pretty good wet weather driver.

Leclerc doesn't seem to be very good or bad at wet weather driving. He's just okay. And that would be fine if the car was competent in the wet but it isn't. A car as mediocre as Ferrari's are in the rain needs a truly exceptional wet weather driver to bring it anywhere, and in my opinion the only driver that fits the bill for this is Verstappen.

I will say Leclerc is as always really good at starts. Wet or dry it's one of his most consistent strengths.

Only person who has mentioned it having anything to do with plank wear was apparently a sky italia commentator. havent seen anything from anywhere else. Only other one was autoracer who said Ferrari misjudged the ride height and didnt account for the inters being higher than slick tires?

i wouldnt blame Charles, Lewis said the car was hard to drive in the wet and seemed like all it wanted to do was put him in the wall

[deadhead]

I have faith in the team

Because they dominated from 1999 to 2006-ish?

I have faith in them to at least course correct somewhat because they have the past 2 seasons as well. No one is fighting McLaren this year

Oh, you have faith in them fighting for 2nd or 3rd that I can agree with

[Luscion]

Because they dominated from 1999 to 2006-ish?

I have faith in them to at least course correct somewhat because they have the past 2 seasons as well. No one is fighting McLaren this year

Oh, you have faith in them fighting for 2nd or 3rd that I can agree with

Yea if Mclaren's pace in hot temps is anything like it was in Australia they are going to dog walk the competition to both championships

[ringo]

The ground effect car formula doesn't give a wet weather driver any edge. The cars are like boats, and the boats have to stay on basicaly one racing line. Wet driving is exploited by some drivers because they are innovative with the racing lines and feel for grip. These cars the feel is all down to engine calibration and tyre temperature etc. Not much room for driver ability to make a difference. At most a driver can do is stay out of the wall or get close, but nothing esle.
You go offline to overtake a car of similar pace, your gonna side off or lose tyre temps.
Again, both drivers did well, Leclerc had is spin out of frustration, but not an indictment on his ability. Lewis drove well, closed down on the Williams, and also closed onto Leclerc before the spin.
Redbull had great highspeed performance and traction and still could not overtake even when getting to within 0.3s.

Constructors is Ferrari's only hope. Charles and Lewis just need to keep doing what they're doing now, finish close to each other and as high as possible. The numbers will work out with two guys consistently getting the most of what they have.
Both seem to have similar qualy and race pace, which is good, and this is just Lewis' first session. He should get more confident going forward.
McLaren is a huge problem.. RB19 vibes.. Formula Zero..

[catent]

We really need to know why they raised the ride height, and if this was an error in judgment for this particular weekend, or something fundamental about the car that will compromise it for an extended period of time (or, god forbid, the whole season).

Disclaimer that I'm a layperson without much technical knowledge ...

It seems plausible to me that the increased ride height was not directly related plank wear concerns, but rather to compensate for some other change to setup. Is it possible that the primary setup decision was to soften the suspension in order to make the car more driveable in the wet, and they increased the ride height to accommodate the softer suspension setup? Seems to me that a softer suspension setup may require more ground clearance, else risk wearing the plank. In which case the plank wear was a downstream worry, but the primary issue was a poor setup choice (going too soft).

I think what concerns me is the team's seeming lack of clarity about why this weekend went so poorly. I get it's a new car concept and they'll need time to fully understand how to optimize setup and extract maximum performance, but during the 2023 and 2024 seasons I very much got the sense that - even during the difficult stretches - the team was steady-headed and understood why they struggled, and understood how to optimize (even if a fully optimized car wasn't a consistent competitor for wins).

Unfortunately I get the sense the team was caught-out this weekend and don't really know why things went so poorly, which is mildly alarming. I guess the high expectations coming in play a big part in the disappointment; I really hope they haven't developed a fundamentally flawed racecar (either lacking in pace or predictability/consistency). Then again, I can't imagine their methodical technical approach and the knowledge that led to their significant increase in race pace last season, has evaporated, so that gives me some hope.

I do find it concerning that the team isn't optimistic about Shanghai; that's a complete race track and any championship contending car worth its snuff should go well there. It would be problematic if they developed a car that fundamentally doesn't perform well at such a track. If it's simply a matter of a lack of knowledge of the current concept, fine, but if the car fundamentally won't cooperate with a track like Shanghai, then they've gone very wrong with the concept. I do wonder if the preferred softer suspension setup/design inherent to the Ferrari may be a fundamental limitation of the car at tracks like this, and not something they can work around via aero efficiency.

Final point is about McLaren. I'm not sure it matters if Ferrari manages to optimize their car if McLaren's pace continues to be that strong. Could Ferrari outpace Mercedes and Max by season's end with a better understanding of their car? That seems within the realm of possibility. McLaren? They were untouchable yesterday.

That said, seeing McLaren's absurd race pace yesterday, their very unique suspension setup, flexi-wings from last season, and Red Bull's sudden drop in pace mid-2024 following rumors of their brake hack / bib, I am (rather cynically) beginning to wonder if McLaren have found another silver bullet. If McLaren did in fact find another silver bullet for performance, it remains to be seen whether or not other teams will be able to identify it, and whether or it will be deemed legal if/when discovered.

[FittingMechanics]

McLaren silver bullet is perfect correlation.

Stella did say before the season that their data shows they are still improving at the pace they did last two years, so no sign of diminishing returns.

[ringo]

Redbull doesn't seem to have a drop in pace to me also. It looks better in highspeed sweeping turns than Mclaren, but relatively compromised over curbs. McLaren is the best overall, but I think Redbull can catch them.
The tyre warm up could be the McLaren trick. The brake ducting and cake tin look quite complex.
They're doing something with the air and the brake disc temperatures. I also wonder if they have a passive DAS system on their front steering arms, inspired from the 2020 Mercedes, but just without driver input.

[catent]

McLaren silver bullet is perfect correlation.

Stella did say before the season that their data shows they are still improving at the pace they did last two years, so no sign of diminishing returns.

Solid correlation in and of itself doesn't make a car quick.

An inherently slow car could have perfect correlation and still be slow; an inherently fast car could have imperfect correlation and still be fast.

Ferrari has indicated they've observed good correlation heading into the 2025 season, yet were way off the pace yesterday, to illustrate the point that correlation /=/ pace. Or take the 2023 Ferrari, which had poor correlation for much of the season, yet still demonstrated good pace on certain weekends.

McLaren having 1:1 correlation has allowed them to develop their car with the confidence it will be quick, but in a vacuum has nothing to do with the raw pace of the car.

[catent]

Redbull doesn't seem to have a drop in pace to me also. It looks better in highspeed sweeping turns than Mclaren, but relatively compromised over curbs. McLaren is the best overall, but I think Redbull can catch them.
The tyre warm up could be the McLaren trick. The brake ducting and cake tin look quite complex.
They're doing something with the air and the brake disc temperatures. I also wonder if they have a passive DAS system on their front steering arms, inspired from the 2020 Mercedes, but just without driver input.

Right.

It seems highly improbable to me that a given car could outpace the others to that extent - in the final season of a given regulation set - without unique/different tech. Those margins observed are not the result of a finely-tuned, highly optimized racecar, because at this stage in the reg set every top team has a robust understanding of the technical regulations and have finely-tuned and optimized racecars (both in terms of conceptual design and setup).

A single race weekend out of a 24 race season is a tiny sample size, and certainly not enough information to draw any lasting conclusions at this stage, but if McLaren continue to outpace the others to that extent, it only seems logical to conclude they have something unique about their car compared to their competitors, because their pace was unique compared to their competitors.

[Xyz22]

First lap on hard tyres.

No words.

[JPower]

I think the fact that Hamilton was pretty bad today is pretty concerning. I always thought that a major reason that Ferrari were bad in the rain is that Leclerc and Sainz simply aren't great wet weather drivers, but Hamilton is arguably one of the best wet weather drivers ever and still couldn't make the car work.

It seems like both the SF-24 and SF-25 are horrible in the rain, and like Leclerc might actually be a pretty good wet weather driver.

Ferraris have had a bad habit of making good drivers look bad in the wet for awhile. Why? I don't know. But I struggle to remember a time during this regulation set where Ferrari had the pace to win in mixed/wet conditions.

Seb was a monster in the wet before joining Ferrari. While he had a few good results, he wasn't at the level he was with Red Bull. Sainz was a great wet weather driver before he got to Ferrari. He was praised for his ability to drive well in mixed conditions frequently at McLaren(and TR/Renault) and had great results in those conditions. Rarely saw it at Ferrari, especially after the reg change.

From those two examples, I think Leclerc is likely better than the results show in bad conditions.