Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc have both driven the new Ferrari SF-25 for the first time during a shakedown at the team’s Fiorano test track.
The 2025 livery was revealed alongside the other nine teams at last night’s F1 75 Live event in London, but both drivers quickly returned to Maranello ahead of the first run for the new car this morning. Leclerc was first out on track in Italy before handing over to Hamilton, as Ferrari showed off a refreshed design that is intended to provide greater development opportunity through the season.
A switch from push rod to pull rod front suspension is the most obvious visible change to the front of the car and is designed to increase the scope of aerodynamic development available to the team, after it said it felt it reached a ceiling with last year’s solution.
“The SF-25 is an evolution of the SF-24, which gave us an excellent starting point to work from,” chassis technical director Loic Serra said. “Having said that, we have worked hard, changing 99% of the car, evolving its architecture to maximize performance. The pull rod front suspension is only the most obvious of many significant changes.
“We can expect the coming season to be very closely contested, with outcomes decided by thousandths of a second. We are all set to give it our best shot to find those gains, even the marginal ones, that can make the difference. We are looking forward to being competitive right from the very first race.”
Although team principal Fred Vasseur has made clear the conceptual decisions were made before Serra’s arrival from Mercedes, the new technical leader also insists it’s not a risk to make substantial changes, despite Ferrari scoring the most points of any team — and Leclerc the most of any driver — from the summer break onwards last year.
“The main concept of the SF-25 is really about finding some space to boost the aerodynamic development and the development in general. The SF-24 finished reasonably strong, but it was becoming more and more difficult to develop and find performance,” he said. “So, we had to sort of find space to boost the development rate.
“The car is more of a continuity of the previous car. We’ve changed most of the parts on the car, but the main performance concept remains the same. So, I actually don’t expect a learning curve that is steeper than last year.
“Hopefully, the development rate will be boosted compared to what it was end of last season. But I’m not expecting necessarily to operate the car in a very different place.”
