Last Updated on May 28 2025, 7:22 am

The 2025 Formula One season was meant to herald the return of the sleeping giant that is Ferrari to the top of the championships standings. With new signing Lewis Hamilton able to bring his knowledge and experience of a multi-title winning team to Maranello, the hope was his reunion with team principal Fred Vasseur would create a super team.

Yet hopes of winning anything other than the odd race should the rivals fail have now faded and it was Ferrari’s decision to build a while new car for 2025 which is at the root of the problem. Over the last six weekends of the 2024 season, Ferrari had the quickest car and the best driver pairing.

After Singapore and ahead of the two triple header weekends which conclude the season, Ferrari were adrift in third place behind Red Bull and a distant 75 points behind leaders McLaren. The pairing of Leclerc and Sainz then hit a purple patch and come the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi, the gap to McLaren was a tantalising 14 points.

 

 

As the F1 teams headed into this year, Christian Horner was asked whether the RB21 would be revolutionary or evolutionary, he replied: “Both.” Yet inexplicably when asked the same question Fred Vasseur had this to say. “We are in the fourth year of applying these regulations and we know our previous project very well. That is why the 2025 car will be completely new.”

He added that the 2025 Ferrari “will share less than 1 percent” with the red single seater that was raced by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc this season. With the biggest car design regulationary change coming in 2026 along with the unknown of completely new power units to join them, the perceived paddock wisdom was that in this the final year of the these FIA design rules which debuted in 2022, the teams would converge upon designs which were similar.

Further and because of this the battle at the front of the field was expected to be even closer, which a quick glance at the margins in qualifying will confirm. With the exception of Bahrain and Monaco, the gap between the pole sitter and the driver in P2 has been under 1/10th of a second and in Jeddah and Monte Carlo the difference was a tad over 1/10th, yet Ferrari are nowhere.

 

 

 

Across the equivalent eight opening events in 2024, Ferrari won two races and racked up an impressive two Grand Prix victories and seven other podium finishes. This year Leclerc is their only driver to taste the champagne on Sunday with a P3 in Saudi and a OP2 last time out at his home race in Monaco.

The difference between 2024 and 2025 isn light and day. So what went wrong? Clearly the SF-25 is not a patch on its predecessor and questions are being asked in Maranello about whose decision it was to completely overhaul what was a race winning and title contender for end of season glory.

Of course the buck stops with Fred Vasseur, given he is the team principal, yet there are others behind the scenes with important influence and power who may hold significant responsibility for the decision – anyway, the Italian blame game is about to kick off in earnest.

The Ferrari boss is a likeable character unlike his morose and incommunicative predecessor Mattia Binotto. Yet his bon homie at times verges on the comical, where we fid ourselves laughing at him rather, than with the rotund genial Frenchman. Its as though its all just one big silly game at times when Vasseur launches into one of his extended chortles, whilst holding his stomach in a quasi Father Christmas like manner.

Marko admits another Red Bull driver shuffle is on the cards

 

 

 

Yet to the tifosi, Ferrari’s well being is close to life and death and their expectations with the arrival of Hamilton were on a high not seen since the team recruited Fernando Alonso in 2010. The Spaniard came close twice in winning the drivers title in red, but with the team making poor strategic decisions in season deciders, Fernando was doomed to fail in his pursuit of the coveted third championship.

The arrival of Lewis Hamilton appears to have upended team harmony on a number of occasions, with Fred Vasseur having to explain post chequered flag why communication with the drivers is less than desirable. Again in Monaco this was evident as Hamilton asked his race engineer if he had been sent to Coventry.

In the closing laps, Hamilton requested the gaps ahead and behind as he ran alone on track. There was no response to these questions twice. As he crossed the line Hamilton asked Riccardo Adami whether he was upset with him, once again there was no response.

The beleaguered Ferrari boss was once again sent out to face the music after more communication between the Ferrari team and its newest driver. “Because when the driver is asking something between turn one and three, we have to wait [until] the tunnel to reply,” revealed Vasseur, “to avoid to speak with him during the corners.”

 

 

 

“It is not that we are sleeping – it is not that we are having a beer on the pit tall. It’s just because we have a section of the track where we agreed before to speak with him. Honestly, it’s not a tension that the guy is asking something,” Fred concluded unconvincingly.

Now it appears that Ferrari may be looking for another new leader of their F1 team and should they replace Vasseur next season, this would see them with their fish manager in eleven years. Prior to this when Ferrari had significant success they had just two team principals between 1993 and 2014 – some 22 years.

Mainstream German news publication, Bild, is now reporting Ferrari have sounded Red Bull team boss, Christian Horner out over a move to Maranello. Just over a season ago this would have been unthinkable. With Verstappen smashing F1 records held for decades and Newey at the helm of the design team, nothing could be better for the man who took the ashes of jaguar F1 Racing and made them into serial winners.

Monaco scrapping

 

 

 

Horner is currently under contract until 2026, yet the departure of Newey this year along with other senior personal from Milton Keynes together with uncertainty over Max Verstappen’s future has made Horner the focus of attention in the media. Add to that Dr. Helmut Marko continually stirring the pot, maybe if Horner left for Ferrari the entire Red Bull project would lose its way completely.

Horner as the boss of Lewis Hamilton wold be an entertaining pairing given the Red Bull boss criticised Hamilton’s driving after he rammed Verstappen into the wall at the 2021 British Grand Prix, calling it “desperate” and “out of order.” He also criticised Mercedes for their strategic error in Abu Dhabi which lost Hamilton the title, rather than a dubious safety car decision.

Horner to Ferrari??? It seems unlikely. Christian is used to getting on a running the Red Bull team as he sees fit with total control. Yet the death of Didi Mateschitz has changed all that and now the corporate directors in Austria fancy playing F1 manager too.

 

 

 

Extreme alterations for Monaco

By El Jefe Maximo – In response to the growing calls for Monaco’s removal from the Formula One calendar – The drumbeat is getting louder: Monaco is boring. It doesn’t work with modern F1 cars. Monaco should be dropped. However, before Formula One makes what could be its greatest mistake in decades, we should take a step back and ask a different question. What if the problem isn’t Monaco itself, but our stubborn insistence on treating it like every other race?

A recent article on this website highlighting Monaco’s problems struck a chord with many in the F1 community. Yes, Sunday’s Grand Prix was another processional affair. Yes, team bosses are ‘out of ideas’. And yes, something needs to change. However, the solution isn’t to abandon one of motorsport’s most iconic venues; it’s to embrace what makes Monaco special and build on that…. READ MORE