Last Updated on December 2 2025, 9:27 pm

Were the drivers title race settled, the Formula One headlines would be filled with articles about the future of Ferrari and their team boss. Fred Vasseur was given a contract extension to the end of 2027 in the summer, although many Italian observers believe it was to shut down the headlines surrounding Christian Horner taking the team principal role in Maranello.

There remain huge question marks in Italy over Vasseur’s ability to turn things around at the Scuderia. Since the announcement of Fred’s new contract prior to the Hungarian, the team have scored just 122 points across nine weekends, yet four of those included Sprint races and extra points.

After a double DNF in Brazil and a miserable outing in Qatar, the Scuderia are planted in fourth place in the constructors’ championship and Lewis Hamilton is in danger of dropping out of the top six drivers.

 

 

 

Ferrari stopped developing the SF-25 in April

At the final round of the year it could be the seven times world champion suffers his most humiliating moment of the season, as his replacement at Mercedes – rookie Kimi Antonelli – overtakes him =in the driver standings. The Italian is currently two points shy of Hamilton’s total for the year.

In Qatar, team boss Fred Vasseur made much of the fact that his team had stopped developing all aerodynamical aspects of the SF-25 in April. The reason being was to focus on the huge new car and power unit design regulation changes coming in 2026. Fred admitted it has been difficult to manage the ‘physiological’ impact on team members in Maranello, who week in and out watch Ferrari slip further away from the front runners.

Now top F1 press outlet in Italy, Corriere della Sera, is reporting the upper echelons of the Ferrari group have marked Fred’s card. It claims that Vasseur will be given until the end of April next season, to demonstrate the trade off from quitting this season’s in season development was worth the subsequent humiliation.

This means Ferrari will have had a year dedicated to their 2026 F1 project and gives Vasseur just five race weekends in 2026 to save his job. “Vasseur will fly with the new car or will sink with it,” says Corriere della Sera.

McLaren’s bizarre reaction to Piastri following Qatar calamity

 

 

 

Maranello power unit is LATE

Further, the media outlet indicates that sources within the team are “apprehensive about the timing of the new power unit. IT IS LATE,” screams the report. Potentially another banana skin for the Ferrari boss to navigate.

That said, recent rumours have surfaced that most of the team’s are struggling with their new green “bio fuel” with one said to have opted for a synthetic option, whilst the rest  are produced from naturally growing substances.

Whilst the Ferrari power unit department may be struggling, it appears they are not alone. The appointment of Adrian Newey at Aston Martin last week hit the F1 headlines, but the sub-text of Andy Cowell being forced to manage the relationship with Honda rang alarm bells for fans of the team. Honda have admitted they will homologate their 2026 power unit at the last possible moment, suggesting they too are behind schedule with their design and build.

“We are aiming to submit the homologation in February next year – since we had a slightly late start, we want to push forward until the very last moment,” Tetushi Kakuda of Honda Racing Corporation told motorsport.com in the autumn.

Fresh driver trash talk again in Qatar

 

 

 

Vasseur gets just 5 races in 2026

Andy Cowell, Newey’s predecessor as Aston Martin team boss has been credited as the brains behind the all dominant Mercedes V6 hybrid in 2014, hence the reason for his move at the Silverstone based squad.

With the Italian media lifting the lid on the potential end of Fred Vasseur’s reign as Ferrari team principal, the chatter will quickly turn to who is best placed to replace him and indubitably Christian Horner’s name will be raised once again. Unsurprisingly he will become available for an F1 return – in APRIL – when Vasseur’s day of reckoning is slated.

Lewis Hamilton was despondent in Qatar when asked about the future at Ferrari, to the point he said he wasn’t looking forward to 2026. Hamilton later qualified his comments stating he thought no driver would be looking to 2026 after such a tough and gruelling season.

Leaks reveal further chaos as Aston Martin

 

 

 

Hamilton doubtful Ferrari will change its ways

Yet again Hamilton lifted the lid on how things are faring in Maranello, suggesting he has more documents for the team to consider in terms of making changes. “I’ve got so many notes in terms of things we need to improve on. Time will tell whether or not we act on those things, if we keep hold of the things that are good and change the things that are not – there are plenty of those. But there is no reason why we couldn’t fix those if we just put those [ideas of mine] into action. I’m hopeful that we will make progress.”

This is hardly a ringing endorsement of Vasseur’s leadership skills and perpetuates the claims there is a civil war in Maranello. Hamilton is and always has been a marmite character, and ex-Ferrari racing driver recently revealed his popularity was low amongst the Ferrari engineers before he even joined the team.

Ex-Ferrari driver who claims to remain close to a number of senior figures in Maranello, Arturo Merzario, stated in September that many of the engineers  in Italy believe Hamilton’s recruitment was merely for “commercial purposes” and that “90 per cent of the employees did not want him there.”

Qatar GP future in doubt as circuit ‘not fit for purpose’

 

 

 

Hamilton worst F1 season

Unfortunately for Lewis Hamilton, his once vast reputation has been undermined in recent years. He was beaten two of the three years he raced alongside Russell at Mercedes by his young team mate and again this season is being trounced by Charles Leclerc.

Hamilton believes his fall from grace coincided with the all new ground effect F1 cars in 2022, the season after his titanic struggle for the drivers title with Max Verstappen. Since then he has won just two Grand Prix in 91 race weekends – and one of those was gifted to him when his team mate George Russell was disqualified in Belgium.

Lewis hoping and praying the all new 2026 car designs, will suit his racing style much more, although first he is facing his first ever year in F1 without even a podium.

 

 

 

Wolff SLAMS Verstappen’s engineer “brainless”

Toto Wolff slams Lambiase suggestion as “brainless” – Whilst McLaren made a strategy call which would have made those at Ferrari proud, a small detail was playing out during the final two laps of the Qatar Grand Prix which mostly went un-noticed.

The Woking based team had made a disastrous strategy call during a lap 7 safety car, which in effect gave the rest of the field a free tyre change in a race where two stops were mandated. This meant Piastri and Norris Rivas were handed a free 26 seconds by the McLaren strategist being the time it usually takes at Losail to complete pit lane visit to a tyre change.

This locked the other nine teams into a race strategy where they would stop again on lap 32 then run 25 laps (The Pirelli maximum allowed per set of tyres) to the end of the race on lap 57. Norris however, performed his final pit stop on lap 44 giving him 12 lap fresher rubber than Antonelli and Sazin ahead who he was chasing down for third place…. READ MORE