2025 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[venkyhere]

That weight carried at start of full race though .... probably where most of the plank wear takes place .... in the first half of race laps.

Missed replying to this..
Yes, that 'probably' is super important in your post above. When the fuel burns off, faster the car goes, more downforce, more 'pressing to the ground' , alongwith more worn tyres (that decrease ride height) => more plank wear - that's possible too.
So unless we have the 'math' with us, there is no way to predict when the plank wears more, closer to the start of the race or closer to the end of a race.

The broken wing on 16 was still supporting load into the chassis somewhat competently, the proximity to the ground CAN give it advantage in pure ground effect as aero "ideal" and why they have very strong test for drooping of the wing across the car in scrutineering.

Those effects just cannot be qualified by us to make a driver judgement I feel.

atleast agree with me that a drooping down front wing on one side without an endplate is going to 'affect' the aero wash to one side of the floor tunnels (the main reason why the noses of the cars are so 'high' in this ground effect era) and we know how sensitive the floor tunnel flow is to 'yaw' ; which indirectly implies that if such a car is faster than the same car that's undamaged, the difference most probably is the driver

[Farnborough]

That weight carried at start of full race though .... probably where most of the plank wear takes place .... in the first half of race laps.

Missed replying to this..
Yes, that 'probably' is super important in your post above. When the fuel burns off, faster the car goes, more downforce, more 'pressing to the ground' , alongwith more worn tyres (that decrease ride height) => more plank wear - that's possible too.
So unless we have the 'math' with us, there is no way to predict when the plank wears more, closer to the start of the race or closer to the end of a race.

The broken wing on 16 was still supporting load into the chassis somewhat competently, the proximity to the ground CAN give it advantage in pure ground effect as aero "ideal" and why they have very strong test for drooping of the wing across the car in scrutineering.

Those effects just cannot be qualified by us to make a driver judgement I feel.

atleast agree with me that a drooping down front wing on one side without an endplate is going to 'affect' the aero wash to one side of the floor tunnels (the main reason why the noses of the cars are so 'high' in this ground effect era) and we know how sensitive the floor tunnel flow is to 'yaw' ; which indirectly implies that if such a car is faster than the same car that's undamaged, the difference most probably is the driver

Hehe I can see we are looking at it differently but I'm not skilled enough in that to judge. We'll have to request Vanja to adjudicate i suspect.

I will offer though, historic GE cars in F1 where the front wing was removed, also that #16 didn't appear to have more deg on front left, well not that he called it like that.

A shame that they ultimately produced two problem, for team and championship race, is the biggest loss from my view.

[DJ Downforce]

Two positive things in this very bad weekend, from my point if view:

1. Leclerc showed great pace and confidence even with the broken front wing, which I heard should be around 20-30 points of lost downforce. Plank wear, however, could be influenced by aero load, so this was beneficial for Charles’ plank.

2. They are running the car so low to be out of rules, but no evidence of bottoming. Fixing the issue should be a matter of tuning the height of critical channels, not a complete rethink of the floor.

Your second point is particularly a promising one. No porpoising or bottoming. In fact the car caught running illegally low was slower than the allegedly legal one.

[dialtone]

For some folks here:

1. There is no legality car height, only thing that matters is plank wear.
2. Makes literally no sense to say that the sprint was illegal. You don't run the sprint with 100kg of fuel, the car is setup for legality in the sprint, not for legality if you also ran another 37 laps in the sprint just in case.
3. LEC was DSQed for plank legality issues in 2023, plank wear has been a topic up and down the grid for the past 4 years. If you think the other cars on the grid aren't designed to run as low as possible as well, you may need to reassess what you believe in, the issue is more complicated than ride height alone, the car is sitting on an elastic platform not steel legs, it's not a chair.
4. FIA has the power to check whatever they want in any car on the grid, specifically they concern themselves with checking plank wear on both cars of the team if they suspect they would find a problem. Evidently when they looked at the bolts in LEC's car they saw they didn't look shaved enough to deserve to be properly measured.

Can we please talk a bit more in reality here? Yeah it was a really bad sunday, some serious lessons have to be learned, but come on...

[DJ Downforce]

That weight carried at start of full race though .... probably where most of the plank wear takes place .... in the first half of race laps.

Missed replying to this..
Yes, that 'probably' is super important in your post above. When the fuel burns off, faster the car goes, more downforce, more 'pressing to the ground' , alongwith more worn tyres (that decrease ride height) => more plank wear - that's possible too.
So unless we have the 'math' with us, there is no way to predict when the plank wears more, closer to the start of the race or closer to the end of a race.

The broken wing on 16 was still supporting load into the chassis somewhat competently, the proximity to the ground CAN give it advantage in pure ground effect as aero "ideal" and why they have very strong test for drooping of the wing across the car in scrutineering.

Those effects just cannot be qualified by us to make a driver judgement I feel.

atleast agree with me that a drooping down front wing on one side without an endplate is going to 'affect' the aero wash to one side of the floor tunnels (the main reason why the noses of the cars are so 'high' in this ground effect era) and we know how sensitive the floor tunnel flow is to 'yaw' ; which indirectly implies that if such a car is faster than the same car that's undamaged, the difference most probably is the driver

It was similar to Mexico 2023. Damaged front wing and his pace was fine. I think it suggests more that end plates aren't too influential. Maybe the flexing even helped

[DJ Downforce]

For some folks here:

1. There is no legality car height, only thing that matters is plank wear.
2. Makes literally no sense to say that the sprint was illegal. You don't run the sprint with 100kg of fuel, the car is setup for legality in the sprint, not for legality if you also ran another 37 laps in the sprint just in case.
3. LEC was DSQed for plank legality issues in 2023, plank wear has been a topic up and down the grid for the past 4 years. If you think the other cars on the grid aren't designed to run as low as possible as well, you may need to reassess what you believe in, the issue is more complicated than ride height alone, the car is sitting on an elastic platform not steel legs, it's not a chair.
4. FIA has the power to check whatever they want in any car on the grid, specifically they concern themselves with checking plank wear on both cars of the team if they suspect they would find a problem. Evidently when they looked at the bolts in LEC's car they saw they didn't look shaved enough to deserve to be properly measured.

Can we please talk a bit more in reality here? Yeah it was a really bad sunday, some serious lessons have to be learned, but come on...

Anyone calling the sprint illegal is arguing in bad faith and are probably just trying to discredit Hamiltons drive. I'm sure all the teams have it slammed further down in the sprint then they would otherwise

[catent]

After damage charles was flying. Kinda feels like that balance shifted towards rear due to loss of dwf at front.
Meaning if we can solve rear loss of dwf and height issue we can compete. But i think its gonna take a lot of time for nothing.
Focus on this season to know the car and suspension and spend development time all on 2026

Leclerc was pretty adamant the damage was costing a lot of lap time and he is one of the most honest driver out there.

There’s honest and there is delusional. Come on…did you see McLaren? Piastri had that covered while yawning

What is “delusional” about Leclerc claiming he felt a lot of lap time was lost as a result of the damage? I don’t see any delusion in that statement.

Especially considering the fact this is a track that really tests the front-left tire, losing the left endplate from the front-wing at Shanghai is one of biggest handicaps imaginable when combining the type of damage/downforce loss, with the location it occurred, at the track it occurred at.

[ringo]

There are some here in the thread just to spread negativity because Hamilton lives rent free in their head.
As said before the car cannot be illegal becuase it has a low ride height. There are no limits on low a ride height can be run.
The plank wear is the main restriction. The teams can dare themselves to come as close to the limit as they want.
There is also nothing to suggest that one car was lower than the other in bith sprints and race.
The setups were different, however. Lewis plank wore on the rear of the plank. This could be from curbs or the back of the car dropping on the straights from the load. Hamilton did not use much DRS on the straight as he was too far from Russel. Charles on the other hand used DRS right through the race. This would have saved his car from being fully loaded at the rear.
So there are many factors at play. People trying to bash drivers around a technical sporting issue are just far off the mark.
Ferrari wont make the error again this year I am sure.

[bluechris]

Can we wait 1-2 normal races guys? I say it again, today was the first full normal race for a car that is too much changed from everything they had ran the previous years. With Melbourne wet and this weekend a sprint, what did you expected? That all will be perfect and the team and the correlation and everything? Well i didn't i was just hoping that the stars will aline once for them and they will have an easy job. That didn't happened, they have the data and they will fix it.
They will fix it till Japan? Maybe yes maybe not, i don't know but i hope they will.

[ringo]

Leclerc was pretty adamant the damage was costing a lot of lap time and he is one of the most honest driver out there.

There’s honest and there is delusional. Come on…did you see McLaren? Piastri had that covered while yawning

What is “delusional” about Leclerc claiming he felt a lot of lap time was lost as a result of the damage? I don’t see any delusion in that statement.

Especially considering the fact this is a track that really tests the front-left tire, losing the left endplate from the front-wing at Shanghai is one of biggest handicaps imaginable when combining the type of damage/downforce loss, with the location it occurred, at the track it occurred at.

It's woulda coulda shoulda. There are many examples with damaged cars keeping the same pace as undamaged ones.
The front wing was flexing a lot and that may have even given more aero advantage in different parts of the track.
It's Charles own fault for damaging the car with basically a rookie error.
There's always the next race to show what he can do.

[Venturiation]

There are some here in the thread just to spread negativity because Hamilton lives rent free in their head.
As said before the car cannot be illegal becuase it has a low ride height. There are no limits on low a ride height can be run.
The plank wear is the main restriction. The teams can dare themselves to come as close to the limit as they want.
There is also nothing to suggest that one car was lower than the other in bith sprints and race.
The setups were different, however. Lewis plank wore on the rear of the plank. This could be from curbs or the back of the car dropping on the straights from the load. Hamilton did not use much DRS on the straight as he was too far from Russel. Charles on the other hand used DRS right through the race. This would have saved his car from being fully loaded at the rear.
So there are many factors at play. People trying to bash drivers around a technical sporting issue are just far off the mark.
Ferrari wont make the error again this year I am sure.

they were doing the same in mercedes threads, rent free they follow him everywhere to hate

[ScuderiaLeo]

The lengths people will go to on here to discredit both drivers is wild. The team had their worst race in years yet somehow people are debating about the drivers still and every conversation devolves into "my driver did better!" "no, my driver did better!"

I'm sure Ferrari is grateful people are focused on this meaningless crap instead of how badly they messed up.

I was hoping that at least the fact today's result was so obviously not the driver's fault we would be free of this for a while, but I guess I was too hopeful.

[catent]

There’s honest and there is delusional. Come on…did you see McLaren? Piastri had that covered while yawning

What is “delusional” about Leclerc claiming he felt a lot of lap time was lost as a result of the damage? I don’t see any delusion in that statement.

Especially considering the fact this is a track that really tests the front-left tire, losing the left endplate from the front-wing at Shanghai is one of biggest handicaps imaginable when combining the type of damage/downforce loss, with the location it occurred, at the track it occurred at.

It's woulda coulda shoulda. There are many examples with damaged cars keeping the same pace as undamaged ones.
The front wing was flexing a lot and that may have even given more aero advantage in different parts of the track.
It's Charles own fault for damaging the car with basically a rookie error.
There's always the next race to show what he can do.

So what is “delusional” about Leclerc’s comment?

Are there many examples of cars with damage to their left front-wing keeping the pace at Shanghai? The track and the type/location of damage are critical details that matter.

Losing a front-wing endplate at a circuit like Monza or Bahrain may be negligible (or even a net-positive at a track like Monza). Losing a front-wing endplate at Shanghai, specifically a front LEFT wing endplate, is inarguably a significant handicap.

While sentiment about subjective feel of the driver is valid, it’s also true that Leclerc said the car felt funny after the damage. Based on Leclerc’s comments and the observable damage, it’s probably a very safe bet that this damage ultimately cost Leclerc much more time than it brought him (especially with regard to tire management).

A rookie mistake? Meh, I’ve seen far worse, clumsier errors across the grid. A mistake? Yeah, a minor mistake, with not-so-minor consequences.

Leclerc did show what he can do during his very strong race at Shanghai. He’s been demonstrating some seriously impressive race pace for well over a year now. There’s no doubt about Leclerc’s pace and quality in the mind of anyone who’s been halfway paying attention to his racing in recent seasons.

[ScuderiaLeo]

Federico Albano gets referenced here a lot, here are his thoughts from today.
https://www.formulapassion.it/f1/f1-ana ... qualifiche

Before any knee-jerk conclusions could be drawn, the shock announcement of Ferrari’s double disqualification for separate technical infractions—the first time in history—cut through all the analysis. This dual error from the Maranello team is hardly excusable. A top team like Ferrari cannot afford amateurish mistakes such as bringing a car to the finish line 1 kg underweight and justifying it with a one-stop strategy—especially when nearly all teams used the same strategy in this race. [...]

During the SF25’s launch, much attention was given to the revolutionary front suspension, which switched from a push-rod to a pull-rod setup. However, major changes were also made to the rear end despite retaining the same suspension architecture. Last season’s primary focus was on limiting aerodynamic bouncing and porpoising, leading to an entirely redesigned rear. This overhaul seems to have introduced new challenges, with a pattern now becoming clear.

During Bahrain testing, Ferrari’s balance showcased an unusually strong front end—odd given this generation of cars' natural tendency toward understeer. However, the rear appeared unstable throughout testing, especially at a track like Sakhir, known for stressing the rear tires. In Australia, the car was extremely competitive on Friday, but once its ride height was raised to avoid wear-related penalties, performance vanished, along with a significant amount of downforce. In China, the car was strong in the Sprint—where teams can run ultra-low ride heights due to the shorter race length—but then displayed an interesting anomaly in the main race. [...]

Piecing everything together, the SF25’s rear-end weakness emerges as the primary problem. One theory is that Ferrari’s new rear wing, beam wing, and diffuser do not generate enough downforce in a standard configuration, forcing engineers to run ultra-low ride heights to compensate—leading either to disqualification (China) or a massive performance drop (Australia). Another possibility is that the rear generates enough downforce but lacks mechanical balance to exploit it fully, possibly due to the car’s fundamental redesign.

This may explain why Loïc Serra skipped Shanghai to return to Maranello and work on a solution. With only one weekend off before a triple-header, Ferrari needs answers. Suzuka might suit the SF25’s strong front end and minimal slow corners, but in Bahrain—where rear-end downforce is crucial—finding a fix will be essential.

[Hammerfist]

What is “delusional” about Leclerc claiming he felt a lot of lap time was lost as a result of the damage? I don’t see any delusion in that statement.

Especially considering the fact this is a track that really tests the front-left tire, losing the left endplate from the front-wing at Shanghai is one of biggest handicaps imaginable when combining the type of damage/downforce loss, with the location it occurred, at the track it occurred at.

It's woulda coulda shoulda. There are many examples with damaged cars keeping the same pace as undamaged ones.
The front wing was flexing a lot and that may have even given more aero advantage in different parts of the track.
It's Charles own fault for damaging the car with basically a rookie error.
There's always the next race to show what he can do.

So what is “delusional” about Leclerc’s comment?

Are there many examples of cars with damage to their left front-wing keeping the pace at Shanghai? The track and the type/location of damage are critical details that matter.

Losing a front-wing endplate at a circuit like Monza or Bahrain may be negligible (or even a net-positive at a track like Monza). Losing a front-wing endplate at Shanghai, specifically a front LEFT wing endplate, is inarguably a significant handicap.

While sentiment about subjective feel of the driver is valid, it’s also true that Leclerc said the car felt funny after the damage. Based on Leclerc’s comments and the observable damage, it’s probably a very safe bet that this damage ultimately cost Leclerc much more time than it brought him (especially with regard to tire management).

A rookie mistake? Meh, I’ve seen far worse, clumsier errors across the grid. A mistake? Yeah, a minor mistake, with not-so-minor consequences.

Leclerc did show what he can do during his very strong race at Shanghai. He’s been demonstrating some seriously impressive race pace for well over a year now. There’s no doubt about Leclerc’s pace and quality in the mind of anyone who’s been halfway paying attention to his racing in recent seasons.

Fact of the matter is leclerc was slower than hamilton all weekend until he had the frony wing damage. So it would be odd for him to have lost a lot of performance due to damage while still becoming comfortably faster than hamilton all race long.

Ive always been intrigued by the lack of performance loss from a damaged front wing. Max won vegas 23 wirh a similarly damaged fronti wing. Hamilton won jeddah in 21 with a similarly damaged front wing. Thats just off the top of my head. Im sure there are many more examples. It often doesn’t affect performance at all.