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 crew boss Fred Vasseur subsequently having to navigate a barrage of hypothesis about his future. So, the place do the legendary crew stand on the summer time break? Right here is their half time period report…
Greatest 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 out a Grand Prix win throughout 14 weekends to this point, whereas McLaren turned an already super-competitive bundle into an excellent stronger one to bag 11 victories between Australia and Hungary and go away scraps for his or her rivals.
It means Charles Leclerc’s run to second on house soil in Monaco marks Ferrari’s finest Sunday outcome, forward of 4 extra of his personal podium finishes – not together with the Dash periods 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 change 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 means of cutting the gap to pace-setters McLaren, Leclerc was solely out-qualified by Hamilton as soon as throughout their first eight most important grid-deciding periods as crew mates.
Hamilton appeared to show a nook mid-season with a automobile he has typically 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 greater on paper on the subject of race days, having misplaced out to his new crew mate throughout a Grand Prix simply twice – when Hamilton completed fourth on Ferrari’s house soil at Imola and bagged one other P4 end on his house turf at Silverstone.
It’s, after all, price noting that 2025 marks Leclerc’s seventh 12 months in the identical surroundings, having stepped as much as Ferrari after his debut 2018 season with Sauber, whereas Hamilton has had all kinds to get used to on and off the observe 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 automobile, 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
Greatest 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 abruptly 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 reaching the crew’s finest second of 2025 to this point.
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 principle Qualifying session – being disqualified from respective P5 and P6 finishes.
Hamilton was excluded after post-race checks discovered that his automobile 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 listing – the elation of that outcome turning to huge frustration when his victory push received derailed by an unspecified automobile drawback and finally left him greater than 40 seconds adrift.
Going ahead
As talked about throughout the introduction of this half time period report, Ferrari had their eyes mounted on a championship problem heading into the 2025 marketing campaign, however these hopes had been quickly dashed due to McLaren’s imperious pace and consistency.
Across the time of the Canadian Grand Prix, Italian media shops 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 crew, 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 straightforward: construct on recent updates, safe P2 within the Groups’ Championship over Mercedes and Crimson Bull and nail the 2026 rules reset.
“All people within the firm is aligned on this undertaking,” Vasseur insisted earlier than the summer time break. “That is most likely the very best feeling when you’ve gotten a objective and everyone is satisfied that we are able to obtain it, we are able to go for it, and we’re all pushing in the identical path.
“It’s not a secret that Ferrari wish to win once more, however now we have a goal, and the objective may be very, very clear. We’ll put all the things [in] to attain 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 things collectively, and the 2026 problem [is] a great alternative.”
