2025 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[F1NAC]

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.

We didn’t see race pace from LEC with whole car so it is unecessary to even debate.

One thing that one can see is that Lec coped well with damaged car. 20 points of DF lost. Thats not small

[ringo]

What if Loic Sera was responsible for the poor mercedes car behavior in w14 and w15.. and Merc glady released him to join Ferrari and create problems?
The W16 seems to be perfectly fine now in terms of consistency and ride control now yhat Sera is gone.

[Seanspeed]

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.

Well I think it's probably more accurate that Lewis was simply strangely off-the-pace in the race rather than Leclerc being strangely fast.

Lewis in the Sprint race versus Feature race was clearly a wild difference.

And there's no way at all that missing a front wing endplate on a front-limited track like China didn't hurt performance. You could see Leclerc's performance through T9-10 especially was just dismal and that's exactly where such a fault would show up.

[Hammerfist]

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.

Well I think it's probably more accurate that Lewis was simply strangely off-the-pace in the race rather than Leclerc being strangely fast.

Lewis in the Sprint race versus Feature race was clearly a wild difference.

And there's no way at all that missing a front wing endplate on a front-limited track like China didn't hurt performance. You could see Leclerc's performance through T9-10 especially was just dismal and that's exactly where such a fault would show up.

I just dont buy it. Like i said cars with similar damage have shown race winning pace in the past and have won races. If charles did suffer a loss then he was likely faster than the mclarens, which is ridiculous to even think that might be true.

[deadhead]

The excessive plank wear only occurred on one car. That doesn't suggest a fundamental issue to me.

Did the FIA check both cars for plank wear?

[ScuderiaLeo]

Did the FIA check both cars for plank wear?

As far as we know they only checked Hamilton.

I just dont buy it. Like i said cars with similar damage have shown race winning pace in the past and have won races. If charles did suffer a loss then he was likely faster than the mclarens, which is ridiculous to even think that might be true.

Mercedes and Red Bull were two tenths off from McLaren, Leclerc was four tenths off. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to say that Leclerc without damage in a more comfortable setup than the sprint could add two or three tenths to the times he was putting out with damage. It's not like the gap was an absurd one second.

We don't know for sure though so I think saying with certainty he would've been so-and-so amount of tenths slower or faster and then using that to paint either driver as having been bad is ridiculous. We just don't have enough information to make calls like that.

[catent]

What if Loic Sera was responsible for the poor mercedes car behavior in w14 and w15.. and Merc glady released him to join Ferrari and create problems?
The W16 seems to be perfectly fine now in terms of consistency and ride control now yhat Sera is gone.

Serra hasn’t touched a Mercedes in years. I believe 2022 or 2023 was his last season working with the team. He’s been on gardening leave for awhile prior to joining Ferrari and had nothing to do with the 2024 (and possibly 2023) Mercedes.

Serra was reportedly an opponent of the development direction under Elliot in 2022, but the team ultimately erred by moving forward with Elliot’s conceptual vision.

With an intact front-wing endplate, the odds are good Leclerc finishes ahead of Russell (or certainly closer). I’m not so sure Mercedes is in particularly great shape … and in any case, two races isn’t enough to draw any conclusions.

[Luscion]

What if Loic Sera was responsible for the poor mercedes car behavior in w14 and w15.. and Merc glady released him to join Ferrari and create problems?
The W16 seems to be perfectly fine now in terms of consistency and ride control now yhat Sera is gone.

Serra hasn’t touched a Mercedes in years. I believe 2022 or 2023 was his last season working with the team. He’s been on gardening leave for awhile prior to joining Ferrari and had nothing to do with the 2024 (and possibly 2023) Mercedes.

Serra was reportedly an opponent of the development direction under Elliot in 2022, but the team ultimately erred by moving forward with Elliot’s conceptual vision.

Yup, Serra(along with Lewis) disagreed with Mike Elliot on the W13 and 14. Iirc, Serra went on gardening leave October 2023, only joined Ferrari on October 1st of last year and development of the SF-25 began long before that

[DGP123]

With an intact front-wing endplate, the odds are good Leclerc finishes ahead of Russell

Russell was managing. No guarantee of that outcome.

Even if he did, his car may of been illegal, as the car was not checked for skid wear. With a podium finish, the car would have been subject to more stringent scrutineering too, therefore, it would have possibly been all for nothing anyway. His pace was too good, and has others have said, it looked suspicious. No surprise he was a) under weight & possibly b) running low?

[LetHimTrough]

With an intact front-wing endplate, the odds are good Leclerc finishes ahead of Russell

Russell was managing. No guarantee of that outcome.

Even if he did, his car may of been illegal, as the car was not checked for skid wear. With a podium finish, the car would have been subject to more stringent scrutineering too, therefore, it would have possibly been all for nothing anyway. His pace was too good, and has others have said, it looked suspicious. No surprise he was a) under weight & possibly b) running low?

I have seen that claim Charles car wasnt checked for Skid Wear, how do people know that? Just based on the FIA file?

[sypack]

With an intact front-wing endplate, the odds are good Leclerc finishes ahead of Russell

Russell was managing. No guarantee of that outcome.

Even if he did, his car may of been illegal, as the car was not checked for skid wear. With a podium finish, the car would have been subject to more stringent scrutineering too, therefore, it would have possibly been all for nothing anyway. His pace was too good, and has others have said, it looked suspicious. No surprise he was a) under weight & possibly b) running low?

I have seen that claim Charles car wasnt checked for Skid Wear, how do people know that? Just based on the FIA file?

There was no reason to check his plank wear since the punishment is disqualification and he was already disqualified for his weight.

[LetHimTrough]

Russell was managing. No guarantee of that outcome.

Even if he did, his car may of been illegal, as the car was not checked for skid wear. With a podium finish, the car would have been subject to more stringent scrutineering too, therefore, it would have possibly been all for nothing anyway. His pace was too good, and has others have said, it looked suspicious. No surprise he was a) under weight & possibly b) running low?

I have seen that claim Charles car wasnt checked for Skid Wear, how do people know that? Just based on the FIA file?

There was no reason to check his plank wear since the punishment is disqualification and he was already disqualified for his weight.

But being the other car DSQ for Plank Wear, I find unbelievable that they didn't check Charles car lets say for data collection for future races.

[Jdn1327]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/lewis-ham ... dict-china

Basically Lewis tried a setup thay Charlie had tried in Bahrain. It made the car worse. He also debunks the myth that they raised the car. Lewis has always been guilty of trying these experiments and it loses them time. If he had stuck with his original setup then both him and Charles could have finished higher working together...

[Emag]

https://www.planetf1.com/news/lewis-ham ... dict-china

Basically Lewis tried a setup thay Charlie had tried in Bahrain. It made the car worse. He also debunks the myth that they raised the car. Lewis has always been guilty of trying these experiments and it loses them time. If he had stuck with his original setup then both him and Charles could have finished higher working together...

“I don’t know who said that we lifted the car, but no,” he said. “We made some other changes mostly, as well as that, but not massively, it’s like small amounts.

Well, he doesn’t really debunk it, he just moves attention away from it.

[organic]

First upgrades in Bahrain according to Autoracer