Worst opening performance in 16 years causes panic at Ferrari – The start of the 2025 Formula One season has raised immediate concerns at Ferrari following a lacklustre performance in Melbourne. Despite starting the Australian Grand Prix with the fastest time on Friday, the Scuderia quickly lost momentum as the weekend progressed.
Former F1 driver and Sky expert Timo Glock was quick to point out Ferrari’s inconsistency, calling them the “King of Free Practice”. While Charles Leclerc topped the timesheets on Friday, Ferrari’s competitiveness waned as the weekend progressed. The team’s final race results – eighth and tenth – were in stark contrast to their early promise and marked their worst season-opening performance in 16 years.
The last time Ferrari started a season so badly was in 2009, when they failed to score any points in Melbourne. Since then, they have always managed to finish the opening race in the top six. This sudden dip in form has raised the question of whether Ferrari are in a state of internal panic just one race into the new campaign.
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Vasseur blames qualifying problems for Ferrari’s struggles
However, Ferrari Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur believes the team’s underwhelming result in Australia does not accurately reflect its true potential. He pointed to qualifying as the main reason for their struggles, explaining that poor grid positions on Sunday made it difficult to capitalise on race pace.
“It’s a negative result because we didn’t put everything together in qualifying and I think we had a much better pace than our final result suggests,” Vasseur told Canal+.
Both Ferrari drivers suffered from a sub-par qualifying session, with Leclerc and Carlos Sainz starting from P7 and P8 respectively. This compromised their ability to challenge for podium positions, leaving them vulnerable to midfield battles and strategic missteps.
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Risky strategy backfires in the race
In an attempt to regain lost ground, Ferrari took a gamble with their race strategy. When rain returned in the second half of the Grand Prix, Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were among the last drivers to switch from slicks to intermediates, hoping to gain an advantage. But instead of reaping the rewards, both drivers lost crucial positions.
Vasseur later admitted that the strategy decision was a mistake. “It was the wrong decision,” he admitted, noting that before the rain intensified, Ferrari had at least held P5 and P8. After the delayed pit stops, they dropped further down the order, eventually finishing P8 and P10.”
The Scuderia’s struggles were compounded by driver errors, including a mistake from Leclerc in wet conditions. Glock was critical of Ferrari’s execution, saying, “They made another strategy mistake and another driving mistake from Leclerc. Ferrari is definitely the flop of the weekend among the top teams.”
Vasseur defends Ferrari’s approach
Despite the criticism, Vasseur defended Ferrari’s decision to take a risk, arguing that the decision was justified in the circumstances, even if it ultimately backfired.
“We have to admit that we made the wrong decisions,” he admitted. “But it was good to take the risk – we just should have come in a lap earlier.”
He also insisted that Ferrari’s pace on Friday, in both the short and long runs, was promising. “We have to build our season on that, not on a strategy that didn’t work in the end.”
The team boss made it clear that rather than pointing fingers, Ferrari must focus on refining their decision-making process to avoid similar setbacks in future races.
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Pressure mounting on Ferrari
While Vasseur remains optimistic that the Melbourne result does not reflect Ferrari’s true potential, the pressure is undoubtedly mounting. Glock warned that Ferrari cannot afford a repeat of last season’s small but costly strategic errors.
“This is what we saw last year – small strategy mistakes always had a big impact,” he said. “The pressure will increase if there isn’t a clear improvement in the next few races.”
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, however, cautioned against overreacting to Ferrari’s struggles in Melbourne. “I think they’re not far behind us,” Stella noted, suggesting that Ferrari’s performance may not be as bad as it looks on paper.
Nevertheless, the numbers from Australia paint a worrying picture. With the Chinese Grand Prix next up, Ferrari have little time to regroup. The upcoming race will be a crucial test of whether Melbourne was an anomaly or an early sign of deeper problems within the team.
If Ferrari is to be a title contender in 2025, it must quickly prove that its true pace is stronger than its disappointing season-opening results suggest.
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The first Formula One race weekend of the 2025 season is done and dusted and many of the tantalising questions from pre-season testing have been answered. McLaren are definitely the team to beat at this early stage of the year, while even a “horrible” Red Bull car is capable of extraordinary feats in the hands of max Verstappen.
Mercedes appears to have the edge over Ferrari, which will please Toto Wolff no end and his selection of junior driver Kimi Antonelli to replace the departing Lewis Hamilton now appears to be a masterstroke. Antonelli was the best of the rookies in Melbourne last weekend with a drive from P16 to finish less than two seconds behind his team mate in P4.
The young Italian made a daring overtake in the closing laps to pass Williams’ Alex Albon, something missed by the world feed live at the time. Only Oliver Bearman of the remaining first race of the season rookies managed to finish the rain affected race in Melbourne…. READ MORE ON THIS STORY
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