2025 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[FW17]

He just declared he's on for 2026 especially that the ground effect regulations will be gone. If Ferrari really listen to him, and all that knowledge from the Mercedes dominant era I see now reason why they can't dominate in 2nd half of 2026. Let's face it, Charles is a great driver but he doesn't know what a dominant car is supposed to feel like, and Fred doesn't know how to manage a dominant team. I hope Loic Sera proves his worth too with his Mercedes knowledge. If either of these three falter in 2026 they should all be fired.

He has just come away from 3 seasons at Mercedes where this supposed knowledge didn't yield any results. If he couldn't make it work at Mercedes where he was completely integrated and respected he stands little chance of doing it for Ferrari. Speaking of Ferrari, they were more competitive than Mercedes from 2022-2024, so why should they be taking lessons from Hamilton on how to win? They've gone from nearly winning last year to getting progressively worse across 2025 at the same time as Hamilton has tried to influence the team. It points towards him being a liability.

Both teams were competitive when they could through money at the problems or have a 100 hp over the competition. They have no clue of running an efficient team. If they pin their hopes on a drivers who probably did not finish high school to show them the way......................OMG!!!

[deadhead]

Lewis notebook is a bigger joke than Ted's

[Luscion]

Bullet points from the article written by Duchessa about next year's car and ferrari's plans

https://www.corriere.it/sport/formula-1 ... 4xlk.shtml


SF-25 didn't work and it's limitations were too deep to get it back on track

Even though the new suspension didnt work, it helped them understand where the correlation was lost and helped Serra to not make the wrong choices for 2026

Ferrari abandoning the SF-25 early allowed them to try all possible mechanical combinations, allowing them to design a suspension scheme with double push-rod with an unprecedented design

The technical office had established with Vasseur that they couldn't give up the possible 2 tenths per month, perhaps 3, of development on the 678 against the half tenth per month of this season.

Ferrari is focusing most of its main attention on the chassis and on some drivability solutions given the new regs are a surprise for everyone

Whether 2026 will be the year of the spotlight or yet another reset will be understood after 6-7 races

There's maximum confidentiality at the top, only Vasseur, Serra, Tondi and Gualtieri (the head of the engine department) know the integration data between chassis, power unit and simulations.

The SF-26(?) unlike the current car, will have a continuous development plan for each single race, directed by Frank Sanchez.

Ferrari will announce the launch date of the 2026 car soon

[ScuderiaLeo]

Leclerc was in today's press conference. Some interview notes I've seen/watched:

• Everyone is expecting McLaren to be very strong here.
• He doesn't think Ferrari will be competitive for a podium, let alone him being relevant to the title race, but he'll do his best to maximize the result no matter what it is.
• He maintains he's satisfied with his own overall job this season and they've performed well as a team despite the bad weekends here and there. The last weekend was an outlier so he hopes they can end on something better.
• He can trace back their current car's flaws to mid-2022 when they started to lose control of their development compared to Red Bull.
• He thinks Norris will win the WDC because the points gap is too large. Though for some time he thought it'd be Verstappen.
• [Answering whether he would let one of the contenders by] He won't race them any less hard because of it; he doesn't care personally who wins so he won't move aside for any.
• They know what wrong with Qatar, but they don't know for sure what they could've done better.
• He thinks hate commenters, like the ones Antonelli was subject to, should be punished more harshly.
• He doesn't have any specific advice to give Hamilton, they work together frequently already so Hamilton knows everything Leclerc knows.

[hsg]

Lewis pure performance last 4 years was age problem(he simply loose speed) or venturi floor cars?
What do you think? Next year flat floor is come back so we will get answer..

[r85]

Lewis pure performance last 4 years was age problem(he simply loose speed) or venturi floor cars?
What do you think? Next year flat floor is come back so we will get answer..

I think a younger Lewis would have adapted better to these cars. He loses a lot of his laptime mid-corner right after his usual hard braking, perhaps it's not what these cars like.

[Badger]

Lewis pure performance last 4 years was age problem(he simply loose speed) or venturi floor cars?
What do you think? Next year flat floor is come back so we will get answer..

There's no compelling argument for why he would be bad with venturi cars, it's just an excuse. These cars aren't that dissimilar to the previous gen, they have similar amounts of downforce, cornering performance, braking performance etc. The driving style change is small enough that for a guy of Hamilton's talent it should have been a relatively easy transition, not something you struggle with for 4 years. The reasons for his decline are simple, natural decline because of age and stronger teammates.

As for next season I would actually be more worried about how his driving style adapts than current gen. His signature is late braking. With the new gen cars late braking is basically not going to be a thing because of all the harvesting towards the end of the straight. The deceleration distance will be elongated and the performance is going to come from whoever can carry the most speed through the corner and get back on power first. It won't be last of the late brakers.

[hsg]

There's no compelling argument for why he would be bad with venturi cars, it's just an excuse. The reasons for his decline are simple, natural decline because of age and stronger teammates.

I agree, next year will be no difference than last few years. When he admitted it to himself, he will retire at the end of 2026.

[venkyhere]

Lewis pure performance last 4 years was age problem(he simply loose speed) or venturi floor cars?
What do you think? Next year flat floor is come back so we will get answer..

I think a younger Lewis would have adapted better to these cars. He loses a lot of his laptime mid-corner right after his usual hard braking, perhaps it's not what these cars like.

There's no compelling argument for why he would be bad with venturi cars, it's just an excuse. These cars aren't that dissimilar to the previous gen, they have similar amounts of downforce, cornering performance, braking performance etc. The driving style change is small enough that for a guy of Hamilton's talent it should have been a relatively easy transition, not something you struggle with for 4 years. The reasons for his decline are simple, natural decline because of age and stronger teammates.

As for next season I would actually be more worried about how his driving style adapts than current gen. His signature is late braking. With the new gen cars late braking is basically not going to be a thing because of all the harvesting towards the end of the straight. The deceleration distance will be elongated and the performance is going to come from whoever can carry the most speed through the corner and get back on power first. It won't be last of the late brakers.

I think LH has always struggled with ground effect cars. That's because of his inability to alter his natural driving style. I had posted this a few weeks ago :

While I don't want to comment on his involvement(or lack of) in 'car development' (we are reminded of the various 'I am the man for experiements' in 2022 and 2023 at Mercedes) ; one thing I can say with confidence - he hasn't adapted his driving to suit a ground effect (GE) car, where combined entry (steering + super-aggressive braking) into a corner disturbs the car so much, that it loses balance.
That's because of the shape of the underfloor 'low pressure slice of air' :
-- in the 'normal flat floor era', this was a wedge shaped high speed air, which produced suction that was less sensitive to the dynamic shape changes to the wedge (which comes mainly from hard braking under 'yaw')
-- int the GE venturi floor era, this is a small volume 'snake body shaped' tunnel with ultra-fast moving air, which produces suction ; thus making it super-sensitive to dynamic shape/orientation changes in corner entry. A big clue that this is the case, is the amount of anti-dive/anti-squat present in the GE designs, compared to the previous era.

Decades of muscle memory and 'instinct' (or just plain old stubborness) that makes him repeat the same 'hard late braking with not-little steering angle' on corner entry, is a technical deficiency from a driving standpoint. I am sure he is aware of this already. Hamilton will be happiest to see the back of 4 years of GE cars, and will be eager for the flat floor 2026 car.

[dans79]

There's no compelling argument for why he would be bad with venturi cars, it's just an excuse. These cars aren't that dissimilar to the previous gen, they have similar amounts of downforce, cornering performance, braking performance etc. The driving style change is small enough that for a guy of Hamilton's talent it should have been a relatively easy transition, not something you struggle with for 4 years.

This generation of car really dislikes late breaking for 2 interrelated reasons. Downforce from the floor is very ride height and pitch sensitive. The simplified suspensions (no more hydraulics) has limited the engineers abilities to control pitch. Late breaking makes a car pitch more severely, and doing it in a ground effects car leads to DF instability.

How do you know he hasn't changed his driving style? The margins between P1 and P20 are often less than 1% Perhaps other drivers are just better at rolling into the turns than him!

As for next season I would actually be more worried about how his driving style adapts than current gen. His signature is late braking. With the new gen cars late braking is basically not going to be a thing because of all the harvesting towards the end of the straight. The deceleration distance will be elongated and the performance is going to come from whoever can carry the most speed through the corner and get back on power first. It won't be last of the late brakers.

In 2014-2016 they did lots of lifting and costing and he did just fine then! Mostly because you only had to ease into some corners on some tracks to recharge, not every corner on every track!

Imo, the issue is far more nuanced than you are attempting to make it sound.

[Chuckjr]

dans79 you may want to check out what has been discussed in some of the 2026 engine regulation forums. The stuff they are having to do next year with the rear wheels to harvest energy is just crazy. It's going to ruin feel, distort the braking process, and drivers who drive more from a natural ability over those who drive best using all kinds of gadgets and technical snobbery, will suffer. It's a real thing. Badger is onto something, imo.

[ScuderiaLeo]

If anyone here was hoping the drivers would suddenly start hating Vasseur, you're going to be disappointed by today's interviews. Both of them said they want to win the title next year with Vasseur and gave him heaps of praise as per usual.

Leclerc said that the team has grown a lot this year, partially due to Hamilton and Vasseur's influence. Something interesting he said about Hamilton is that working with him has made him more attentive to minor details in the car that previously his garage relied more on "gut feeling" for. Hamilton is much more meticulous in his approach than Leclerc's past teammates so he's learned a lot from observing him in this area.

[deadhead]

Lots of funny stuff floating around

“The technical office had agreed with Vasseur that they couldn't give up the 2 tenths, or even 3, of monthly development possible on the 2026 car, compared to half a tenth per month this season. The gap with McLaren was too big to get back in the race. All the more so since Ferrari is focusing most of its attention on the chassis and certain handling solutions which, given the new regulations, will be a surprise for everyone.”

SF25 was “born” ~8 months behind in terms of development?!

[PlatinumZealot]

Lewis pure performance last 4 years was age problem(he simply loose speed) or venturi floor cars?
What do you think? Next year flat floor is come back so we will get answer..

I think a younger Lewis would have adapted better to these cars. He loses a lot of his laptime mid-corner right after his usual hard braking, perhaps it's not what these cars like.

There's no compelling argument for why he would be bad with venturi cars, it's just an excuse. These cars aren't that dissimilar to the previous gen, they have similar amounts of downforce, cornering performance, braking performance etc. The driving style change is small enough that for a guy of Hamilton's talent it should have been a relatively easy transition, not something you struggle with for 4 years. The reasons for his decline are simple, natural decline because of age and stronger teammates.

As for next season I would actually be more worried about how his driving style adapts than current gen. His signature is late braking. With the new gen cars late braking is basically not going to be a thing because of all the harvesting towards the end of the straight. The deceleration distance will be elongated and the performance is going to come from whoever can carry the most speed through the corner and get back on power first. It won't be last of the late brakers.

I think LH has always struggled with ground effect cars. That's because of his inability to alter his natural driving style. I had posted this a few weeks ago :

While I don't want to comment on his involvement(or lack of) in 'car development' (we are reminded of the various 'I am the man for experiements' in 2022 and 2023 at Mercedes) ; one thing I can say with confidence - he hasn't adapted his driving to suit a ground effect (GE) car, where combined entry (steering + super-aggressive braking) into a corner disturbs the car so much, that it loses balance.
That's because of the shape of the underfloor 'low pressure slice of air' :
-- in the 'normal flat floor era', this was a wedge shaped high speed air, which produced suction that was less sensitive to the dynamic shape changes to the wedge (which comes mainly from hard braking under 'yaw')
-- int the GE venturi floor era, this is a small volume 'snake body shaped' tunnel with ultra-fast moving air, which produces suction ; thus making it super-sensitive to dynamic shape/orientation changes in corner entry. A big clue that this is the case, is the amount of anti-dive/anti-squat present in the GE designs, compared to the previous era.

Decades of muscle memory and 'instinct' (or just plain old stubborness) that makes him repeat the same 'hard late braking with not-little steering angle' on corner entry, is a technical deficiency from a driving standpoint. I am sure he is aware of this already. Hamilton will be happiest to see the back of 4 years of GE cars, and will be eager for the flat floor 2026 car.

Can't agree to this.

They said the 2007 cars and tyres suited his style more than Alonso's.

They said he was unable to alter his driving style in 2009 with less downforce.

They said he couldn't drive with blow diffusers and Pirelli tyres.

They said the 2014 cars would be too mentally taxing for him to coordinate with his driving and that he would use more fuel than Nico.

They said his style doesn't like high speed cornering so he would struggle in 2017.

For all those things people predicted Lewis himself didn't say much.

I think we should believe him when he says he doesn't like the feel of ground effect cars.

[venkyhere]

I think a younger Lewis would have adapted better to these cars. He loses a lot of his laptime mid-corner right after his usual hard braking, perhaps it's not what these cars like.

There's no compelling argument for why he would be bad with venturi cars, it's just an excuse. These cars aren't that dissimilar to the previous gen, they have similar amounts of downforce, cornering performance, braking performance etc. The driving style change is small enough that for a guy of Hamilton's talent it should have been a relatively easy transition, not something you struggle with for 4 years. The reasons for his decline are simple, natural decline because of age and stronger teammates.

As for next season I would actually be more worried about how his driving style adapts than current gen. His signature is late braking. With the new gen cars late braking is basically not going to be a thing because of all the harvesting towards the end of the straight. The deceleration distance will be elongated and the performance is going to come from whoever can carry the most speed through the corner and get back on power first. It won't be last of the late brakers.

I think LH has always struggled with ground effect cars. That's because of his inability to alter his natural driving style. I had posted this a few weeks ago :

While I don't want to comment on his involvement(or lack of) in 'car development' (we are reminded of the various 'I am the man for experiements' in 2022 and 2023 at Mercedes) ; one thing I can say with confidence - he hasn't adapted his driving to suit a ground effect (GE) car, where combined entry (steering + super-aggressive braking) into a corner disturbs the car so much, that it loses balance.
That's because of the shape of the underfloor 'low pressure slice of air' :
-- in the 'normal flat floor era', this was a wedge shaped high speed air, which produced suction that was less sensitive to the dynamic shape changes to the wedge (which comes mainly from hard braking under 'yaw')
-- int the GE venturi floor era, this is a small volume 'snake body shaped' tunnel with ultra-fast moving air, which produces suction ; thus making it super-sensitive to dynamic shape/orientation changes in corner entry. A big clue that this is the case, is the amount of anti-dive/anti-squat present in the GE designs, compared to the previous era.

Decades of muscle memory and 'instinct' (or just plain old stubborness) that makes him repeat the same 'hard late braking with not-little steering angle' on corner entry, is a technical deficiency from a driving standpoint. I am sure he is aware of this already. Hamilton will be happiest to see the back of 4 years of GE cars, and will be eager for the flat floor 2026 car.

Can't agree to this.

They said the 2007 cars and tyres suited his style more than Alonso's.

They said he was unable to alter his driving style in 2009 with less downforce.

They said he couldn't drive with blow diffusers and Pirelli tyres.

They said the 2014 cars would be too mentally taxing for him to coordinate with his driving and that he would use more fuel than Nico.

They said his style doesn't like high speed cornering so he would struggle in 2017.

For all those things people predicted Lewis himself didn't say much.

I think we should believe him when he says he doesn't like the feel of ground effect cars.

Who are 'they' ?
Anyway, I am not 'they', I am speaking after actual observation of the body language of the car, onboards etc over the past few years. Hamilton is not driving to the limits of grip that he was so effectively doing in the flat floor era. He may have won races, finished on the podium etc in 2022,23&24 ; but in none of them was he driving 'to the limit', it was either because the Mercedes was the fastest (conditions/setup wise) car on the day, and driving up to 98%(say) of the limit was enough, or because competitors who had a good car made mistakes or both. If he was able to 'properly adapt' he would have actually won far more races with Mercedes itself.