2025 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[Sphere3758]

Ferrari spent half a year developing a new suspension, only to find out that it doesn't work...
They are so bad. it is painful to watch.

Why did the suspension work in the Spa then?

The inters saved them.
They were probably hoping for some showers here too

[AR3-GP]

Ferrari spent half a year developing a new suspension, only to find out that it doesn't work...
They are so bad. it is painful to watch.

Why did the suspension work in the Spa then?

The inters saved them.
They were probably hoping for some showers here too

+1. They weren't quick at Spa either. 7 tenths off in sprint qualy. 10+ seconds behind a Red Bull (nevermind Mclaren) in 15 lap sprint. 3-4 tenths off in GP qualifying and +20 seconds behind in the GP where Piastri managed more. What evidence is there that the suspension worked in Spa? They have been 20+ seconds behind the race winner for the last 5 GPs in a row always with an excuse for why its going to be different next time, and then the same thing happens.

[GrizzleBoy]

Charles will never sell Ferrari out. He has Ferrari in his veins and in his heart. If there is a narrative, he will spin it for the team. Especially if someone whispers in his ear that its the plank.

That's why Leclerc was absolutely lambasting the team via radio messages that he knows will be publicly aired, right, because he would never throw the team under the bus, and will lie to protect them? And therefore the chassis issue - which Leclerc has confirmed - must be a lie to cover for a plank issue?

Laughable.

Complaining about strategy or setup decisions in a vague manner is one thing. Especially when you believe it cost you your only chance for a win this year.

That's one thing. Everyone does that.

Telling the press, "yeah we have massive plank wear and if we're going quick it's cause we have unsustainable plank wear and all our upgrades this year dont seem to have solved that"

That's different.

Remember maybe one or two races ago post race he mentioned "we have some issues, and trust me it's better if I dont mention them" or something very similar.

That's how I'm reading this too. If there was a sensitive issue. Hes not going to say what it is. Especially when the team purposely didnt tell him during the race and waited till the message couldn't be broadcast to let him know the issue.

[SB15]

I think that all of the drivers are emotional. This is not the problem at Ferrari. The problem is the SF25 and Fred has been selling fairy tales about it's potential since day 1. This season would have been like 2020 or 2021 if they ran at an appropriate ride height to stop the plank wear. Fred would not have been renewed. Now you understand why he spent all year blaming the drivers and pointing to this fictitious "potential" which only appears when the car is running too low.

So the car's main problem is because of the limitations going double Pull-rod, since the pull-rod on the front allows for better airflow while also bringing the car closer to the ground at high speed, if you have too much downforce then you run into an issue with plank wear because the car would look it's on rails but is actually scraping the plank because there's not enough "stalling" with the Pull-rod in the rear. The reason why many teams switched to the Push-rod for the rear. (Mercedes did a hybrid for the rear suspension, where their push-rod lowers the car like a Pull-rod while stalling at a certain height, Merc could've been really quick if they switched to pull-rod on the front but they may carry over the current concept for next year)

If other teams went as low as Ferrari does, Ferrari would be completely uncompetitive on pure pace vs Mclaren, Mercedes, & Redbull.

If you would have the real knowledge of an engineer, you would never write all these...
You suggest, that all these simple things and knowledge eludes the engineers of the entire Mercedes and Ferrari F1 team? LOL
Also this pull rod vs push rod nonsense is so laughable... this is like the loch ness monster which still exists in the minds of such "believers"... people start point at them whatever happens, like they are the great differentiators... Please stop this nonsense.

Why do I have to stop with the nonsense if this is the reason for the plank wear, after Austin 23 for Mercedes, their wasn't many reports from the drivers of "Plank wear" or bouncing after Mercedes changed the suspension.

You have to be naive to just say to yourself and say that "you don't know what you're talking about because you're not an engineer because your analogy is basically simple minded". There was literally zero reason for Ferrari to change basically 99% of the car when theirs a whole regulation change happening next year...

That to me what you said was a cop out because Ferrari does know that the rear suspension cannot keep the rear from being too low to the ground because their floor possibly generates soo much downforce. The pull-rod functions as it's name imply, to pull the car down, and since the ground effect cars are more dependent on the floor, having a pull-rod rather than a push-rod gives you more problems that even you can admit. Why do you think they made some type of change to the rear suspension? To avoid plank wear because they do know that they made a bad choice by not changing their rear suspension.

You made the justification that "pushrod vs pull-rod" is nonsense, why do you think Adrian Newey went with pull-rod in the front and push in rear? And Mclaren went with that same philosophy, turns out it's not nonsense.

[f1316]

He is protecting the team. 100%
2 seconds slower with 40Kg of fuel less. Only with Ferrari.
Ferrari spent half a year developing a new suspension, only to find out that it doesn't work...
They are so bad. it is painful to watch.

Where are you getting 40kgs from? There’s no chance they went that light, that’s crazy, not even possible.

We don’t know what exactly what the issue is and it’s clearly not easy to solve, or they would have done so. Hindsight is 20/20 but perhaps going for the one stop would have actually been the way to go since it required a gentler approach that might have been more conducive to saving plank wear? Impossible to know.

What we do seem to know (as much as is knowable) is that there is a fundamental flaw with this car that they can’t solve. My assumption is that they went aggressive this year - much the same as McLaren did, so conceptually not the wrong idea - but didn’t get it right and left themselves in an irredeemable situation. I can’t help but remember Cardile saying that the importance of the suspension has been overemphasised in these regulations and that seems incredibly naive in retrospect and may well be the root of Ferrari’s issues.

The key thing to hope for now is that the 2026 engine is up to snuff as that has the potential to be the main performance differentiator next year and has nothing to do with any of these issues.

[dialtone]

The only frustrating thing in all of this is that in an engineering forum people start with a biased opinion and then proceed to include either no data or only the data they care about so long as it justifies the opinion, and usually it’s random interviews and body language.

[SB15]

I think that all of the drivers are emotional. This is not the problem at Ferrari. The problem is the SF25 and Fred has been selling fairy tales about it's potential since day 1. This season would have been like 2020 or 2021 if they ran at an appropriate ride height to stop the plank wear. Fred would not have been renewed. Now you understand why he spent all year blaming the drivers and pointing to this fictitious "potential" which only appears when the car is running too low.

So the car's main problem is because of the limitations going double Pull-rod, since the pull-rod on the front allows for better airflow while also bringing the car closer to the ground at high speed, if you have too much downforce then you run into an issue with plank wear because the car would look it's on rails but is actually scraping the plank because there's not enough "stalling" with the Pull-rod in the rear. The reason why many teams switched to the Push-rod for the rear. (Mercedes did a hybrid for the rear suspension, where their push-rod lowers the car like a Pull-rod while stalling at a certain height, Merc could've been really quick if they switched to pull-rod on the front but they may carry over the current concept for next year)

If other teams went as low as Ferrari does, Ferrari would be completely uncompetitive on pure pace vs Mclaren, Mercedes, & Redbull.

If you would have the real knowledge of an engineer, you would never write all these...
You suggest, that all these simple things and knowledge eludes the engineers of the entire Mercedes and Ferrari F1 team? LOL
Also this pull rod vs push rod nonsense is so laughable... this is like the loch ness monster which still exists in the minds of such "believers"... people start point at them whatever happens, like they are the great differentiators... Please stop this nonsense.

From @MercedesAMGGTR on X

Link: https://x.com/mercedesamgtr/status/1947 ... 72160?s=46

While Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari have switched to Pullrod suspension on the front axle, Mercedes still uses Pushrod suspension. James Allison explained why:

"We might get better results with the pullrod, but it's not the best thing for us at this point. If we're going to spend time and money there, we'll have to cut back elsewhere."

"Other issues were our priority. The potential lap time gain was not worth the effort.”

#F1 #Mercedes #TeknikAnaliz #Pullrod #Pushrod


Again Push vs Pull is not nonsense depending on the type of car it is.

[woocasz]

He is protecting the team. 100%
2 seconds slower with 40Kg of fuel less. Only with Ferrari.
Ferrari spent half a year developing a new suspension, only to find out that it doesn't work...
They are so bad. it is painful to watch.

Where are you getting 40kgs from? There’s no chance they went that light, that’s crazy, not even possible.

We don’t know what exactly what the issue is and it’s clearly not easy to solve, or they would have done so. Hindsight is 20/20 but perhaps going for the one stop would have actually been the way to go since it required a gentler approach that might have been more conducive to saving plank wear? Impossible to know.

What we do seem to know (as much as is knowable) is that there is a fundamental flaw with this car that they can’t solve. My assumption is that they went aggressive this year - much the same as McLaren did, so conceptually not the wrong idea - but didn’t get it right and left themselves in an irredeemable situation. I can’t help but remember Cardile saying that the importance of the suspension has been overemphasised in these regulations and that seems incredibly naive in retrospect and may well be the root of Ferrari’s issues.

The key thing to hope for now is that the 2026 engine is up to snuff as that has the potential to be the main performance differentiator next year and has nothing to do with any of these issues.

Are you aware that F1 cars burn fuel? If they start with about 100 kg of fuel (the maximum is 110 kg), how much fuel do they have left in their tanks after 40-50 laps?

[Seanspeed]

I've complained several times already surrounding the clear gag order Ferrari has their drivers on in terms of mentioning any specifics of their issues.

It's supremely annoying, and I bet it's far more annoying for the drivers as well, because it prevents them from being able to properly communicate why it's not something they're doing wrong specifically, and only mentioning some vague problem makes it look like excuse-making. I dont think Leclerc is going out of his way to protect Ferrari, I think he is under genuine legal obligation(or close enough to it) that he simply is not allowed to talk about it.

And it just makes for a mess of discussion online, cuz everybody just starts guessing and then we get 'sources' claiming it's such and such and people buy into it without anybody really knowing any wiser whether those sources are credible or not.

Also, my god, is there anything more miserable than seeing Ferrari qualify well? I'd so much rather them qualify P5 and then finish P4, then start P1 and fall back to P4. It's just so annoying to constantly walk away from races on a Sunday feeling miserable and disappointed.

[woocasz]

He is protecting the team. 100%
2 seconds slower with 40Kg of fuel less. Only with Ferrari.
Ferrari spent half a year developing a new suspension, only to find out that it doesn't work...
They are so bad. it is painful to watch.

You mean like Mercedes who went back to their previous suspension and found pace again?

Do you really think that Ferrari needed a filming day, a whole weekend at Spa, three practice sessions at the Hungaroring and half a race distance to suddenly find out that their suspension doesn’t work?

Ferrari is struggling with the plank wear.

On lap 9, we heard Charles say over the radio: ‘What's going on with these cuts?’

He was asked to use FS1 mode (This mode reduces RPM by approximately 300 and the Vmax by 7 to 8 km/h before T1).

same situation on lap 27. Mode FS1

He was asked to use less kerb, exit turn 11 (for the plank)

First stop, they upped the tyre pressure. Second stop, they increase the tyre pressure even more.

https://twitter.com/The_F1Whisperer/sta ... 4529399855

[Seanspeed]

So the car's main problem is because of the limitations going double Pull-rod, since the pull-rod on the front allows for better airflow while also bringing the car closer to the ground at high speed, if you have too much downforce then you run into an issue with plank wear because the car would look it's on rails but is actually scraping the plank because there's not enough "stalling" with the Pull-rod in the rear. The reason why many teams switched to the Push-rod for the rear. (Mercedes did a hybrid for the rear suspension, where their push-rod lowers the car like a Pull-rod while stalling at a certain height, Merc could've been really quick if they switched to pull-rod on the front but they may carry over the current concept for next year)

If other teams went as low as Ferrari does, Ferrari would be completely uncompetitive on pure pace vs Mclaren, Mercedes, & Redbull.

If you would have the real knowledge of an engineer, you would never write all these...
You suggest, that all these simple things and knowledge eludes the engineers of the entire Mercedes and Ferrari F1 team? LOL
Also this pull rod vs push rod nonsense is so laughable... this is like the loch ness monster which still exists in the minds of such "believers"... people start point at them whatever happens, like they are the great differentiators... Please stop this nonsense.

From @MercedesAMGGTR on X

Link: https://x.com/mercedesamgtr/status/1947 ... 72160?s=46

While Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari have switched to Pullrod suspension on the front axle, Mercedes still uses Pushrod suspension. James Allison explained why:

"We might get better results with the pullrod, but it's not the best thing for us at this point. If we're going to spend time and money there, we'll have to cut back elsewhere."

"Other issues were our priority. The potential lap time gain was not worth the effort.”

#F1 #Mercedes #TeknikAnaliz #Pullrod #Pushrod


Again Push vs Pull is not nonsense depending on the type of car it is.

But they are fairly clearly stating that any gains are too small to be worth bothering with.

So it's certainly not any kind of evidence that this aspect of Ferrari's suspension is the major problem.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

The only frustrating thing in all of this is that in an engineering forum people start with a biased opinion and then proceed to include either no data or only the data they care about so long as it justifies the opinion, and usually it’s random interviews and body language.

The Team threads ceased to be an "engineering forum" a long time ago.... But yeah, I agree with you.

[ismail1991]

I think above information is wrong. Mercedes is using pull rod in the front since last year. Ferrari is the last to switch

[dans79]

The only frustrating thing in all of this is that in an engineering forum people start with a biased opinion and then proceed to include either no data or only the data they care about so long as it justifies the opinion, and usually it’s random interviews and body language.

The Team threads ceased to be an "engineering forum" a long time ago.... But yeah, I agree with you.

If this was still an engineering forum, some of the most active members won't be here. This forum is just like the general f1 fanbase now......

[LM10]

He is protecting the team. 100%
2 seconds slower with 40Kg of fuel less. Only with Ferrari.
Ferrari spent half a year developing a new suspension, only to find out that it doesn't work...
They are so bad. it is painful to watch.

You mean like Mercedes who went back to their previous suspension and found pace again?

Do you really think that Ferrari needed a filming day, a whole weekend at Spa, three practice sessions at the Hungaroring and half a race distance to suddenly find out that their suspension doesn’t work?

Ferrari is struggling with the plank wear.

On lap 9, we heard Charles say over the radio: ‘What's going on with these cuts?’

He was asked to use FS1 mode (This mode reduces RPM by approximately 300 and the Vmax by 7 to 8 km/h before T1).

same situation on lap 27. Mode FS1

He was asked to use less kerb, exit turn 11 (for the plank)

First stop, they upped the tyre pressure. Second stop, they increase the tyre pressure even more.

https://twitter.com/The_F1Whisperer/sta ... 4529399855

And none of that tells us that the suspension doesn’t work.
The explanation can be as simple as an aggressive setup choice. Leclerc at the beginning of each of his stints increased the gap to Piastri. He was so fast that the mighty McLaren couldn’t keep up.

Having gone a bit more conservative (or higher with the ride height) would have probably minimized their winning chance, but still let them easily fight for podium.

I’d have been surprised, if they had already found out the optimal setup. A suspension change is one of the biggest upgrades you can bring in-season.

These cars are extremely sensitive to any changes that it’s frustrating to watch. Even extremely talented teams like Mercedes or RedBull who recently dominated and thus proved they’re capable of winning are often left scratching their heads over behavioral problems of their cars week in week out.

I’m happy this regulation set is gone pretty soon.