Defining the 2025 season as one of Ferrari's worst is perhaps too excessive. Anyone who has experienced the dramas of the 2020 World Championship knows well what we mean. The Maranello team had much worse moments than this. It is clear, however, that 5 podiums (Saudi Arabia, Monaco, Spain, Austria and Belgium) added to Hungary's only pole position, a haul won entirely by Leclerc, are not enough to make sense of a year that we could define as rather anonymous.
The performances aren't there. Drivers also do everything they can to achieve a better result than the car deserves based on current potential, but the team seems to be looking beyond that. The historic Scuderia seems to be almost misaligned by the opinions of its drivers. Hamilton and Leclerc, although they have somewhat’ different thoughts on what aspects need to be improved to progress together as a team, team principal Frederic Vasseur also appears detached from the context in certain circumstances.
An example? The statements made by the manager during the weekend in Singapore, in which he overlooked the enormous progress made by Mercedes, stating that not only Ferrari was overtaken, but also McLaren (at least on a one-of-a-kind track like Marina Bay). As if trying to sweep the problems under the rug, "strong" in the fact that they weren't the only ones caught by surprise. At this point it seems that Vasseur is more of a philosophy teacher than a conductor. Not being the only one to let Mercedes overtake you is a pill that can provide relief today, but which won't solve the problems in two weeks, when we race in Austin and the following week in Mexico. Especially now that, having lost second place in the constructors' championship, Ferrari accept the risk of losing third place against Red Bull (a team that essentially competed in the world championship with only one driver).
Ferrari, the wrong mentality that displeases the drivers
It's the mentality that's wrong and the drivers suffer the consequences. While Vasseur is busy finding carpets under which to hide the dust inside the garage, the drivers suffer and this is reflected not only in their performance on the track, but also in their state of mind.
The example that in our opinion fits even more perfectly is the very strange performance that the car has over the weekend. Usually on Fridays the SF-25 is competitive, it seems that it can also challenge its opponents and compete for the podium, if not something more sometimes, but then already from FP3 it deflates like a poorly tied ball. And it's not something attributable to engine mapping. The strange behavior could derive from the reasons that push the technicians to force Leclerc and Hamilton to do a lot of lift and coast during the race phases.
One of the many problems concerns the difficulty of running at the desired ground clearance. On Friday you can turn lower, while from Saturday, with the set-up designed for the race, the car gets up just enough to sweep away all the cards. Who knows if these choices also depend on other factors. There may be more than one.
Here too, however, the question we ask ourselves is simply one: why? Why insist on Friday on using a set-up that you know cannot be used in qualifying and the race? Is this done to be able to tell the pilots that without all these problems the SF-25 would have been able to challenge its opponents and fight at the top? It's a mentality that doesn't work.
We see it in every GP. The more weekends pass, the more dissatisfied the drivers are. They would like to see a reaction, to know that we are working on something concrete without wasting time playing games that lead nowhere. Obviously now, in addition to the budget ceiling, there is also the fact that being at the end of the season, the commitment must necessarily be aimed at 2026, but (and there is a but of stratospheric dimensions) the problem is that the other teams continue to bring updates. Updates that work. Why can't Ferrari do it? What's wrong?
If we immediately focused on the set-up that we know will necessarily generate problems in qualifying and the race, Friday could also be disappointing in terms of results. This may be a fact. The drivers, however, would at least see in the team the desire to learn from a certainly uncomfortable and unwanted situation. They would see a team that knows how to assume its responsibilities and that tries to progress by tackling problems head on.
It almost seems like Ferrari has lost its sense of direction. At least looking at it from the outside, it's like he's going through everything with the wrong mindset. The problem is that the drivers are enormously affected by this situation and it would be no wonder if one of them, or worse both, decided to take flight in the hope of finding their fortune elsewhere. Hamilton is now almost at the end of his career, but Leclerc, it is difficult to think, can resist this condition for much longer.
Photo: Ferrari
Read in italian version: La mentalità sta danneggiando la Ferrari più dei risultati in pista
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