Ferrari cashed in on one of their two permitted filming days for the year on Wednesday, with Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc set loose at Fiorano with the brand-new SF-25 to complete a grand total of 200 kilometres of running at the team’s test track.
World championship glories are quite a long time ago in Ferrari’s past at this point, with the Scuderia’s most recent championship win coming in 2008’s Constructors’ Championship.
On that occasion, it was, ironically, Hamilton himself who stopped Ferrari from winning the Drivers’ Championship as Felipe Massa was, quite literally, pipped at the post. In the 16-and-a-bit years since, success has continuously evaded Ferrari through a variety of different team bosses and World Champion drivers spearheading their charge.
Heading into F1 2025, Ferrari is surely one of the favourites to challenge for both championships. While McLaren narrowly won out against Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship last season, where the Scuderia could take solace was in their response to a wayward mid-season upgrade path that sent the SF-24 in the wrong direction.
If it hadn’t been for this period of mid-season anonymity before managing to get the car back on the right path, Ferrari would almost certainly have secured the championship as their car finished the season challenging McLaren for the unofficial status as Formula 1’s fastest car.
It’s indicative of the cool, calm, and methodical approach team boss Fred Vasseur has instilled over the last two years that there’s no sense that Ferrari is going to make a major misstep over the winter and fall off the boil. Dominating headlines throughout the winter, thanks to Lewis Hamilton beginning work at Maranello, the SF-25 has been, perhaps, the most eagerly anticipated car on the grid for this year.
That car finally broke cover at Fiorano on Wednesday, with the two drivers on hand to carry out the shakedown of the brand-new single-seater ahead of shipping out to Bahrain for next day’s official collective three-day test.
Chassis technical director Loic Serra confirmed that the SF-25 retains the same performance concept as last year’s with the aim of continuity. A particular change has been to the front end by a switch to pull rod suspension in order to clean up the airflow, with Serra explaining the change as being needed to “boost the aerodynamic development, and development [potential] in general” as the previous configuration had neared its ultimate potential. A more in-depth examination of the SF-25 can be found here, courtesy of PlanetF1.com’s technical editor Matt Somerfield.
The theory is one thing, the reality is quite another. So what did Lewis Hamilton, seven-time F1 World Champion, have to say about the new machine after he stepped out of it following his first laps?
“How’s the car? Good,” he confirmed to Sky Italy. “It’s still early, I can’t say too much, but today we had no problems.
“It’s my first Ferrari and it’s hard to believe. I am living every moment intensely.”
Expanding on the day as he spoke to media after the day, the former Mercedes man made a point of emphasising that, at this point, acclimatisation remains his main priority at this point.
“It’s far too early to know what the year is going to be like,” he said.
“What we do know is it’s going to be very close between the top teams, we’ve not even seen all the other cars.
“We’ve obviously not been on track with all the other cars, so what I have seen is just to have this team all under one roof is quite a unique experience that I’ve not had before.
“To have a track outside the factory is quite incredible – to be able to roll out our car and put it on to track has been pretty incredible to see. We know we have a huge amount of work to do. I know that I have a huge amount of work to do. I’m still acclimatising.
“I’ve only been here a month, so I’m still acclimatising to a completely new car, a completely new way of working, but everyone’s bent over backward in this team to make me feel welcome and I really feel at home.
“I know I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. It feels natural, it feels right.
“So I think I’ve just got to continue to put in the time and take it one step at a time as well. Everything doesn’t have to happen in one day. But of course, we have a goal. We have a target where everyone’s rallying to get it.”
Asked straight out whether he believes Ferrari is capable of winning the world championship, Hamilton matter-of-factly replied in the affirmative.
“I worked with two world championship-winning teams before, I know what a winning team looks and feels like,” he said.
“Everyone here, the passion here is like nothing you’ve ever seen. They’ve got absolutely every ingredient they need to win a world championship.
“It’s just about putting all the pieces together. We’ve got a great leader in Fred and John [Elkann] and Benedetto [Vigna].
“Everyone just has a really calm and good approach. No one’s like, ‘We’re perfect in every single area’. Everyone’s like, ‘We need to elevate everywhere’, and they’re leaving no stone unturned to try and do that.”
Having completed his day’s running at Fiorano on just two hours sleep, having travelled straight over to Italy after appearing at the O2 Arena for the F175 launch event on Tuesday night, Hamilton was visibly tired but brimming with positive energy as he reflected on his findings with the SF-25.
In his 18 years in Formula 1, Hamilton has only had to adjust to one team change during his incredible career – that of his move to Mercedes from McLaren in 2013. While a significant change, the similarity of being British-operated teams with Mercedes engines meant the challenge paled somewhat to what Hamilton is going through at the moment.
“It’s completely different. I thought, you know, it’s another Formula 1 car,” he said.
“I thought it would be [like] when I went from McLaren to Mercedes – there were similarities, but I guess it was still powered by Mercedes, so the sound, the vibration, was all the same, or was similar.
“Whilst there were slightly different characteristics of the car, this is a step with the whole thing being completely different.
“It’s a really exciting experience. This is something I’ve really enjoyed trying to wrap my mind around, particularly also just in settings and the terminology they use, the different ways that they can set up a car – that’s taken some getting used to, for sure.”
Given the very different DNA of the SF-25, and the previous cars he has driven in recent weeks, he is finding himself making changes, albeit minor, to his driving style.
“It’s rare that you just jump in and it just fits,” he said.
“For example, the steering wheel is completely different, everything, all these switches are completely different. The software is different, everything.
“Not only that, I’m having to adapt to that. I am adapting to a car that’s made quite differently from what I’ve worked with in the past to achieve a similar sort of thing.
“The feeling is a lot different. I don’t feel that currently, I’m having to change my driver’s style too much. I’m actually feeling quite comfortable in the car and just taking one step at a time.
“I hope, and we’ll see as we get further down the line at the real race circuits that we go into, just how much aligned and how much change I might need to do.
“But the key is to be open-minded and be dynamic. Luckily, with my experience, I should be able to do that.”
The success of Hamilton’s transition from a giant of F1 to the giant of F1 will be perhaps the sport’s most intriguing storyline this year. Should it work, an elusive record-breaking and fairytale world championship could be on the cards. If it doesn’t, then a nondescript finale to what has been a stellar career awaits.
But those are questions for later – the question for now is whether Hamilton can hit the ground running with Ferrari and, perhaps, even replicate the immediate success Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso found with victories in their second and first races, respectively, driving for the Prancing Horse.
“That I don’t know,” he said.
“Those guys did an amazing job. I have huge respect for those two drivers and, having joined teams before, the step it takes and the amount of work that goes on to acclimatise is extraordinary, and so it makes those results that they had even more exceptional than even I had appreciated before.
“What I know is that the testing is more limited than ever before, and fortunately, I’ve had a good bit of time in the car.
“I am still acclimatising. It took me six months to think at Mercedes to get my first win. I honestly don’t know, but I’m doing everything I can to be ready for race one.”
