Last Updated on June 13 2025, 12:37 pm
A quick glance at the Formula One constructors’ championship standings might suggest that in second place, Ferrari are making a fist of the 2025 F1 season. Yet matters couldn’t be further from the truth and the paddock talk in Montreal has been yet again about Lewis Hamilton quitting together with the story which broke this week that the Ferrari group[ chairman may be looking for a new team boss.
With less than ten race weekends complete, Ferrari are a whopping 197 points behind McLaren and their position ahead of Red Bull and Mercedes has been boosted by them competing with teams which do not have two front line drivers, like Hamilton and Leclerc.
The Italian media has been reporting Ferrari are close to finishing up development on the SF-25 and shifting their resources and focus to the big rule changes coming for 2026. At best, the comedy in Maranello is amusing but in reality the team have blown a golden opportunity to fight for their first F1 title in eighteen years.
Ferrari 2025 strategic error
Across the final six races of 2024, Ferrari were the form team despite all the headlines focusing on Lando Norris chasing down the lead of Max Verstappen in the drivers’ championship. The Scuderia closed down a 75 point gap to McLaren across the final triple header weekends to just 14 points come the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi.
Yet surprisingly despite having the fastest car in the closing stages of 2024, the team decided to build an all new car for 2025. Fred Vasseur declared in December, “the 2025 car will be completely new.” He added that the 2025 the Ferrari car “will share less than 1 percent” with the single seater that was raced by Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
This decision was particularly questionable when considering 2025 is the final year in the current set of car design regulations where teams are traditionally finding the ceiling in terms of their ability to find ever more downforce and lap time. Yet Ferrari marched on with their plan which has seen them mostly been fourth best amongst the top teams this season.
With the arrival of Lewis Hamilton, much of the criticism Ferrari may have suffered has been somewhat deflected as the F1 media obsess each week over how the seven ties champion is progressing with his efforts to find his feet within a new team. Yet the signs are emerging that the pressure in Maranello is mounting. Senior figures are covering for each other as exemplified by Fred Vasseur who defended Hamilton’s woeful performance in Spain, suggesting there was something wrong with his Ferrari car.
Vasseur labours over Hamilton defence
Vasseur went on to labour the point that in fact Hamilton had been ahead of George Russell for most of the race and this was the true sign of his performance. “I think he did 70 per cent of the race in front of Russell. I’m not sure that Russell said that the race was a disaster. But then we had an issue on the car the last stint, before the Safety Car. The result is not good, but he did 45 laps in front of Russell.”
Come media day in Montreal, Hamilton returned the favour by defending his team boss from the paddock talk Vasseur’s job is on the line. The Italian media reported this week, that Ferrari president John Elkann – who promoted the Hamilton recruitment – is “obsessed” with Christian Horner and is attempting to woo him to Italy.
When the media begin debating the job security of any senior sports figure, there is no smoke without fire and behind the scenes the conversations have clearly begun. In an attempt to steady the ship when a manager/coach is suffering from these kind of headlines, its often the case that the board of directors will offer a vote of confidence to their beleaguered incumbent.
This merely serves as evidence there is talk taking place behind the scenes and the famed “vote of confidence” that an under-pressure manager gets from his chairman has in reality become such a harbinger of doom (they tend to get sacked soon afterwards) that the term has evolved to become the “dreaded vote of confidence”.
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Lewis offers Ferrari boss the ‘dreaded vote of confidence’
Yet in Fred’s corner is not John Elkann offering his vote of confidence, but the new Ferrari driver who himself is under huge pressure. Hamilton was again asked over whether he would consider retiring if results do not improve to which he tersely replied: “I have literally only just started with this team. I am here for several years and I am in it for the long haul. There is no question as to where my head is at, and what I want to achieve with his team. There are zero doubts so please stop making up (reports about his future).”
Of course Hamilton’s results have been less than spectacular with the Sunday tally for his new team being 10th, disqualified, seventh, fifth, seventh, eighth, fourth, fifth and sixth. Yet Lewis had time to reveal his own vote of confidence in team boss Vasseur, when it was suggested the powers at be ay well be replacing the Frenchman. “I don’t think that is on the cards as far as I am aware and I certainly would not be supportive of that,” noted Hamilton. Firstly, I love working with Fred. He is the main reason I am in this team, and I got the opportunity to be here because of Fred which I am forever grateful for.
“We are in this together, and things are not perfect. I am here to work with the team but also Fred. I want Fred here and I believe he is the person to take us to the top.
“Most people don’t know what is going on in the background. It is not easy, we are having to make changes, there is a lot of work to do, and there is pressure because we want to win, but that (Vasseur leaving) is not a discussion at the moment. I am here to win with Fred and he has my full support.”
Whatever is going on in the background, is not bringing results and pace to the SF-25, in fact a number of engineers in Italy are allegedly advocating abandoning this seasons lame duck and focus on the challenge for 2026. And now to add insult to injury, Hamilton is forced into giving his team principal the dreaded vote of confidence.
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This will be the last running of the Formula One Canadian Grand Prix in what has become its traditional mid-June slot on the calendar. The FIA in an attempt to regionalise F1 racing has decided the weekend in Montreal will now sit at the end of the opening flyaway races and for 2026 is set for the final weekend of May.
This will be the sixtieth running of the Canadian Grand Prix and the 45th visit to the Circuit de Gille Villeneuve on the Isle de Notre Dame, which was created from spoil when the downtown subway system was built. The circuit has been described as somewhat of a karting style circuit for F1, something it shares with the Hungaroring track in Budapest.
Memories from yesteryear are many as the island track has seen some of the most iconic moments in F1 racing over the year’s it has hosted a Grand Prix. There’s the moment in 1991 when all but having won the race, Mansell inexplicably slowed after the final chicane and while he waved to the crowd, his nemesis Nelson Piquet nicked up his inside to take the chequered flag along with Stefano Modena and Riccardo Patrese who filled the remaining podium steps…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
