Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur is confident that issues which plagued the SF-25 “won’t be there next year” but warns “we’ll have other issues” with Formula 1‘s 2026 regulations overhaul.
The Maranello-based squad finished the 2025 campaign fourth in the Constructors’ standings – its worst result since 2020.
At the season finale in Abu Dhabi, the pairing of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton finished fourth and eighth, respectively.
Across the 24 races this season, the SF-25 has been a tricky car to drive for its drivers. Hamilton, who joined the Italian marque at the start of the season has particularly struggled to get to grips with the car.
Leclerc, too, while being able to extract relatively more performance from the package, has also been very vocal about the concept’s shortcomings – especially its wet-weather competitiveness.
The SF-25 has most noticeably struggled to keep a wider operating window of performance and has been prone to excessive plank wear.
This has forced the team to step out of its preferred ride height window exacerbating its deficit and suffering an outright loss of pace – issues that seemingly cropped back up at the Yas Marina Circuit, last weekend.
“I think the philosophy of the car next year will be completely different,” Vasseur told media including Motorsport Week when asked if the lessons learned in 2025 would bear fruit for the team’s latest challenger next year.
“Mainly the aero map of the car won’t be the same. And the issue that we have all this season won’t be there next year.”
While the Frenchman was confident that the regulations reset would eliminate any lingering weaknesses, he sprouted in the caveat of the team suffering from “other issues” that the new regulations might pose.
“But we’ll have other issues for sure,” he clarified.
“Tyres are a key factor all the mid-season. Not the mid-season, but this one is a bit different due to the layout of the track. The event Mexico, Austin, all these events.
“You had a tendency that everybody was taking on the out lap. And it was crucial sometimes for 5 kph on the out lap.
“You were out or in the window. And this is making a difference of one or two tenths on the quali lap. But one or two tenths, once again, it’s a good or a very bad result.”
Leclerc ‘cannot explain’ reason for Ferrari’s lack of competitiveness in 2025
After a staunch challenge for the Constructors’ title last year against McLaren, many believed that the Scuderia would carry over that form in 2025.
That said, with a mammoth 435 point gap to the Woking-based team after 24 rounds, it would appear that the team has taken a very unfortunate detour.
Reflecting on the 58-lap race, his own pace deficit to the MCL39s ahead, and the season as a whole, Leclerc failed to explain exactly what went wrong for Ferrari.
“No, I cannot explain it,” he told media including Motorsport Week.
That said, he did concede that while the team had acquired an understanding of how it could extract more performance from the SF-25 it was a day late and a dollar short in this particular endeavour.
“But I think we do understand. But there’s not another race to prove it, and it’s the last race of the era anyways of this era of cars, so it doesn’t really matter anyway,” concluded the Monegasque.
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