Ferrari might be sitting second in the 2025 constructors’ standings at the summer break, but it hasn’t been the season Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were hoping for.
The Scuderia came into the year with high expectations after finishing just 14 points behind McLaren in last season’s title race. But 14 rounds into this campaign, they find themselves 299 points adrift of their Woking-based rivals.
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Piastri and Norris lead the drivers’ championship with 284 and 275 points, respectively, while Leclerc and Hamilton are back in fifth and sixth on 151 and 109. Ferrari are also still chasing their first Grand Prix win of the season – something every other top-four team has already managed.
McLaren have dominated with 11 wins, Red Bull have two, and Mercedes one. The only bright spot for Ferrari so far is Hamilton’s Sprint victory in China. Beyond that, all five of their Grand Prix podiums this year have come from Leclerc.
Fred Vasseur admits concerns over Ferrari’s rear suspension upgrade debut
It’s the first time in his 19-year career that Hamilton has reached this stage of a season without a Grand Prix podium. Part of the problem was Ferrari’s first-ever double disqualification at the Chinese Grand Prix, where Hamilton was pulled up for excessive floor wear.
The fix didn’t come until the Belgian Grand Prix, 11 rounds later when Ferrari rolled out a rear suspension update. But with Spa being a Sprint weekend, team principal Fred Vasseur wasn’t entirely comfortable with the timing.
“I was a bit scared when I arrived in Spa because they said, ‘OK, on the Sprint weekend, you have to test five different compound ways there, and so it will be difficult to make adjustments’. But, in the end, it went pretty well,” Vasseur told The Race.
Ferrari’s 2025 F1 season took a hit after Lewis Hamilton’s disqualification in China
Following Hamilton’s disqualification, Ferrari technical director Loic Serra had to pause work on the team’s 2026 car design and focus on creating an unexpected rear suspension upgrade. The problems with Ferrari’s original set-up didn’t become clear until after the Shanghai incident.
Hamilton had finished sixth in China but was stripped of that result because of excessive plank wear. The FIA found three points on his floor measuring 8.6mm, 8.6mm and 8.5mm, all short of the required 9mm minimum. Beyond that, Ferrari’s initial rear suspension set-up also left the SF-25 feeling unpredictable for drivers.
It remains uncertain whether the update will prove to be a real improvement. Questions were still being asked at the summer break after Ferrari made a strategic decision to protect Leclerc’s skid plank in Hungary, opting for fourth place instead of pushing for a win to avoid another wear-related issue.
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