It has been one other headline-filled season for Ferrari, with seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton arriving, scrutiny over a deliberate title bid that didn’t materialise, and workforce boss Fred Vasseur subsequently having to navigate a barrage of hypothesis about his future. So, the place do the legendary workforce stand on the summer time break? Right here is their half time period report…
Finest end
Charles Leclerc – 2nd in Monaco
Ferrari got here agonisingly near ending their title drought (which stretches again to 2008) final season, with simply 14 factors separating them and World Champions McLaren after the Abu Dhabi finale – however momentum was constructing and hopes had been excessive for 2025.
Because it has transpired, although, Ferrari are with no Grand Prix win throughout 14 weekends thus far, whereas McLaren turned an already super-competitive bundle into an excellent stronger one to bag 11 victories between Australia and Hungary and depart scraps for his or her rivals.
It means Charles Leclerc’s run to second on residence soil in Monaco marks Ferrari’s finest Sunday end result, forward of 4 extra of his personal podium finishes – not together with the Dash classes and Hamilton’s breakthrough pole place/victory double in China.
Qualifying head-to-head
Leclerc 10-4 Hamilton
Leclerc was out of the highlight over the winter, given all the eye and concentrate on Hamilton’s blockbuster swap from Mercedes, however it’s the Monegasque who has comfortably led the Ferrari intra-team battle over each one lap and a race distance up up to now.
Going “extra excessive” with the SF-25’s set-up early within the season, as he explored each doable approach of cutting the gap to pace-setters McLaren, Leclerc was solely out-qualified by Hamilton as soon as throughout their first eight fundamental grid-deciding classes as workforce mates.
Hamilton appeared to show a nook mid-season with a automotive he has usually discovered to be “on a knife-edge”, beginning forward of Leclerc in three out of 4 races, earlier than Q2 and Q1 exits in Belgium and Hungary (the place Leclerc claimed pole) triggered his “useless” comments.
Race head-to-head
Leclerc 11-2 Hamilton*
Leclerc’s benefit is even larger on paper on the subject of race days, having misplaced out to his new workforce mate throughout a Grand Prix simply twice – when Hamilton completed fourth on Ferrari’s residence soil at Imola and bagged one other P4 end on his residence turf at Silverstone.
It’s, in fact, value noting that 2025 marks Leclerc’s seventh 12 months in the identical atmosphere, having stepped as much as Ferrari after his debut 2018 season with Sauber, whereas Hamilton has had all types to get used to on and off the monitor since arriving at Maranello in January.
“It was an enormous change for Lewis by way of tradition, by way of individuals round him, by way of software program, by way of automotive, by way of each single subject,” Team Principal Vasseur recently told F1.com, including that he and Hamilton maybe “underestimated” the problem.
*No mark included for the Chinese language Grand Prix, from which each drivers had been disqualified
Finest second
Round these struggles, Hamilton has proven flashes of the motive force who has scored extra poles and wins than anybody else in F1 historical past, and who’s tied with Michael Schumacher for essentially the most world titles achieved – the duty now being to unlock that tempo persistently.
Again in March, Hamilton and the SF-25 instantly clicked on the Shanghai Worldwide Circuit en path to P1 in Dash Qualifying and the Dash itself – touchdown an emotional maiden Ferrari victory and arguably attaining the workforce’s finest second of 2025 thus far.
Worst second
Sadly for Hamilton and Ferrari, the next day’s Grand Prix in China represented a thud again to Earth, with the Briton and Leclerc – who had already misplaced some floor in the primary Qualifying session – being disqualified from respective P5 and P6 finishes.
Hamilton was excluded after post-race checks discovered that his automotive had exceeded plank put on limits, whereas Leclerc suffered the identical destiny as a consequence of his being underweight, ending what had been an in any other case morale-boosting weekend in painful circumstances.
Leclerc’s pole-to-P4 hunch in Hungary additionally made a late shout to be included on the record – the elation of that end result turning to huge frustration when his victory push obtained derailed by an unspecified automotive downside and finally left him greater than 40 seconds adrift.
Going ahead
As talked about in the course of the introduction of this half time period report, Ferrari had their eyes fastened on a championship problem heading into the 2025 marketing campaign, however these hopes had been quickly dashed because of McLaren’s imperious velocity and consistency.
Across the time of the Canadian Grand Prix, Italian media retailers began to report that Vasseur – who joined Ferrari in 2023 – was on shaky floor, a state of affairs the Frenchman described as “disrespectful” to the workforce, and one he moved on from to pen a new deal.
Now, with McLaren boasting greater than double the factors of their nearest rivals, Vasseur and Ferrari’s readjusted goal is easy: construct on recent updates, safe P2 within the Groups’ Championship over Mercedes and Purple Bull and nail the 2026 rules reset.
“Everyone within the firm is aligned on this mission,” Vasseur insisted earlier than the summer time break. “That is in all probability the most effective feeling when you may have a purpose and all people is satisfied that we are able to obtain it, we are able to go for it, and we’re all pushing in the identical course.
“It’s not a secret that Ferrari need to win once more, however we’ve got a goal, and the purpose may be very, very clear. We’ll put all the pieces [in] to realize it. We did a good step ahead in every single place, however now we’d like maybe a bit extra time to place all the pieces collectively, and the 2026 problem [is] a very good alternative.”
