Ferrari 2025: more stability to allow Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton to push to the limit
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On February 19, Scuderia Ferrari will unveil its new single-seater for the 2025 Formula 1 season. While curiosity revolves around the design of the new Maranello vehicle, the core concept of the project is what truly matters. The Italian side is determined to address a chronic weakness of recent cars, working to achieve greater mid-corner stability. Rather than prioritizing aerodynamic efficiency, the plan is to provide Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc with a predictable car that allows them to push without hesitation.
Focusing on stability represents a turning point for the Ferrari engineers and technicians. Over the past six years, Ferrari cars have often struggled in long, medium, and high-speed corners, with the notable exception of the positive first half of the 2022 Formula 1 championship. This chronic weakness has been a recurring issue, explaining the Maranello team’s frequent mid-season crises. Contributing to these problems were development missteps, such as last year's aerodynamic update package introduced at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, which exacerbated porpoising issues. However, the traditional European circuits, characterized by sweeping, long-duration corners, have consistently exposed the flaws of Ferrari's recent cars, undermining results. Tracks like Barcelona, Budapest, and Zandvoort have often been particularly challenging for the Maranello team.
In the past two years, Ferrari has shown a commitment to tackling this issue. The 2024 F1 car marked the beginning of a revolution, prioritizing drivability to reduce steering corrections, preserve tires, and improve race pace. While past designs emphasized peak performance with strong qualifying results, since last year, Ferrari has been working to expand the operating window, ensuring consistent and predictable handling across a wider range of conditions. The SF-24, which contended for the 2024 Formula 1 championship until the final race in Abu Dhabi, benefited from this new approach, though stability in long-duration corners remained a challenge—something Ferrari is well aware of.
Aerodynamic updates introduced during 2024 improved the situation, including the flexible front wing debuted in Austin. By deforming at high speeds, the new wing moderated aerodynamic load on the front end, reducing oversteer tendencies in faster corners and boosting driver confidence. However, enhancing stability in long-duration corners is a more complex task, difficult to achieve mid-season without comprehensive interventions.
For this reason, the Ferrari engineers decided to act early. Despite still being in contention for the Constructors’ Championship, the Scuderia chose not to introduce further aerodynamic updates at the end of 2024, instead developing an experimental floor to gather data for the 2025 car, an investment typically around half a million euros. The floor, which debuted during the first free practice session for the Las Vegas Grand Prix, was specifically aimed at improving stability in medium and high-speed long-duration corners. It is no coincidence that the only track where the new floor was used in a race was Qatar, with its many long corners, while it was set aside in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, considering the fact that the 5.281-kilometre Yas Marina Circuit on Yas Island is dominated by hairpins and sharp 90-degree turns. Charles Leclerc described it as "a different approach," calling it "very good in some areas and worse in others" compared to the 2024 floor.
With the 2025 Formula 1 car, Ferrari now aims to develop greater mid-corner stability. The goal is to reduce lap times not only by increasing peak aerodynamic load but by making it consistent and available throughout the entire cornering phase. To achieve this, Ferrari is working to increase the energy of both the airflow beneath the floor and along the car's sides, which then exits in the gearbox-diffuser area. Significant attention is also being given to managing the turbulent wakes from the front wheels, pushing them away from the floor. Crucial areas for this effort include the outer edge of the floor, the bodywork lines, and the radiator inlets, whose design is being leveraged to increase the pressure around the sides of the cockpit, helping to deflect turbulence.
Achieving better mid-corner stability would represent a breakthrough for Ferrari and give the drivers the confidence needed to push the car to its limits. However, it remains to be seen how well the 2025 Ferrari will suit both drivers, given that Charles Leclerc prefers a more oversteer-biased setup, whereas Lewis Hamilton favors a stable rear end. Regardless of their balance preferences, the work on stability will benefit both the Monegasque and the Briton.
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