Ferrari 2025 F1 car: key to qualifying lies in suspension setup
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For Scuderia Ferrari, the challenge for the 2025 Formula 1 championship also depends on qualifying. The Maranello team will continue with the new approach promoted by Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur, which places greater emphasis on race day, but starting from the front rows will be crucial to capitalize on good race pace. The Italian side is focusing on suspension adjustments to achieve a better balance for single-lap performance, a necessary adaptation to the new Pirelli tires, which feature higher operating temperatures.
The problem lies in the tires
The new Ferrari F1 car will not abandon Frederic Vasseur’s philosophy of prioritizing race performance. The 2024 single-seater already featured non-aggressive camber and toe angles, offering good tire management but struggling to extract maximum grip and optimize single-lap performance. Ferrari has often faced challenges in quickly bringing the tires up to temperature during qualifying, at the start of races, and after pit stops.
The Maranello team is therefore preparing countermeasures for 2025, also considering the revised Pirelli tires, which feature changes in construction and compounds, and are designed to operate at higher temperatures. “We've tried to shift the operating range slightly higher,” explains Pirelli Motorsport director Mario Isola. “Except for Las Vegas, we've never struggled with warm-up throughout the year, not even in cold conditions.” However, Isola does not believe that warming the tires will be more difficult with the 2025 product: “It's the same as last year. I don't see any difference.” – the Italian pointed out.
Ferrari's notable difficulty in warming up the tires primarily occurred in extremely cold conditions, such as in Canada, Brazil, and Las Vegas. The reduced effectiveness in qualifying was also linked to other factors, including challenges in balancing the temperature between the front and rear tires, heating the front without overheating the rear. Additionally, the way the suspensions were designed to make the tires work is becoming a focal point for the 2025 car.
The importance of mechanics
In designing the new suspensions, Ferrari's technical department has focused on three aspects: stabilizing the floor at low and consistent ride heights; absorbing curbs and surface irregularities; and heating and managing the tires. The challenge lies in finding the best compromise, addressing weaknesses without sacrificing the strengths of the SF-24, such as reduced tire wear and the ability to handle curbs at low speeds without losing stability. The balance between exploiting the tires for single-lap performance and managing degradation during the race will depend on the external suspension geometry, but not exclusively.
The characteristics of the internal mechanics of the spring-damper assembly also play a role, as they are subject to various modifications by teams during the season, even though these changes are not visible from the outside. Ferrari's 2025 effectiveness in qualifying depends on adjustments made in this area, which will obviously not be noticeable during the car's unveiling. The case of Mercedes best highlights the importance of this aspect. The 2024 Silver Arrow suffered from chronic overheating of the rear tires, a problem opposite to Ferrari's but stemming from a common origin: how the car transfers energy to the tires. Speaking on the issue, Mercedes’ trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained the significance of the internal mechanics: “It's simply a matter of rear tire temperatures, and it's where much of our focus lies. It's related to how you set up the car, so you might need some mechanical tools to help you change it.”
Pull rod or Push rod: an aerodynamic question
Ahead of the February 19 unveiling, curiosity is also growing about the suspension design Ferrari intends to adopt. According to various reports in the Italian news media outlets, the 2025 Ferrari will abandon the push-rod front suspension in favor of a pull-rod system. However, this change is unrelated to the goal of improving single-lap performance. On the contrary, pull-rod suspension linkages complicate the operation of the internal springs, as Sauber's technical director James Key observed in 2024: “From a mechanical perspective, it's a compromise. A mechanical engineer would never design it that way. It's a pull rod, but it's not an ideal way to activate the internal springs.”
Beyond a slight lowering of the center of gravity, the primary advantage of a pull-rod front suspension is aerodynamic and fits into a broader design concept. For Red Bull, for example, the pull-rod layout was the only solution that allowed the cockpit to be moved rearward and the front section of the chassis to be narrowed, providing aerodynamic benefits such as increased usable surface area for the front wing and improved airflow channeling toward the floor. Inevitably, however, the rearward-shifted chassis was also too low near the front wheels. For this reason, Adrian Newey preferred to reverse the layout and adopt the pull-rod system rather than design a push-rod suspension with overly horizontal linkages.
To determine whether the aerodynamic philosophy of the new Ferrari will resemble Max Verstappen's Red Bull car, we will of course have to wait until February. The mechanical details will not be apparent even then, but the new Ferrari will continue to prioritize tire management without sacrificing too much in terms of qualifying pace. The overtaking difficulties caused by dirty air will be even more pronounced in 2025, making starting at the front extremely important.
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