Last Updated on December 6 2025, 8:22 am
The curtain is finally falling on Ferrari’s winless 2025 campaign, a season the Scuderia will file away as an example of what not to do in Formula 1. As Abu Dhabi hosts the finale, Charles Leclerc, sitting fifth in the standings and here to explain why the team moved on emotionally around… April.
A Season Best Forgotten
Results don’t lie, even if Ferrari occasionally tries to. Zero wins, fourth in the Constructors’ standings, and two star drivers who never quite had the machinery to sparkle. Despite the high-profile arrival of Lewis Hamilton, the team spent the year playing catch-up with McLaren and Red Bull, who were evidently more interested in bothering the podium than Ferrari was.
Individually, Leclerc ends the season in fifth place, tucked behind George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Max Verstappen, and championship leader Lando Norris. Just behind him: Hamilton, who spent much of the year wondering whether he should’ve invested in comfier red overalls.
Ferrari understood early that 2025 wasn’t going to be its year. In fact, they understood it so early that development for 2026 began before some fans had even updated their desktop wallpapers. Major regulation changes are coming, and Ferrari decided to commit fully to a future where, ideally, they stop being the punchline.
“We didn’t have many updates because we were mainly focused on 2026,” Leclerc admitted, sounding like a man who has long accepted the jokes. “I think we performed well as a team. What we’re lacking is the car performance. And for that, I’m hoping next year will be better.”
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How McLaren Forced Ferrari Into Retreat Mode
Ferrari’s early pivot to 2026 didn’t happen in a vacuum, it happened in the shadow of McLaren’s relentless rise. While the Scuderia were still running diagnostics on what exactly their SF-25 wanted to be when it grew up, McLaren had already stormed ahead with a package that left everyone else scrambling for adjectives.
Lando Norris’ title campaign and Oscar Piastri’s consistency created a two-pronged assault that effectively shut the door on any dreams Ferrari had of fighting for the championship.
Leclerc was honest about it: From race one, McLaren were simply operating on a different plane. Ferrari could have thrown money, updates, and goodwill offerings at the SF-25, but none of it would have fundamentally changed the power dynamic. McLaren weren’t just quicker — they were demoralizingly so, carving out a performance gulf that made Ferrari’s strategic reallocation toward 2026 feel less like a choice and more like a necessity.
To make matters worse, Red Bull’s mid-season resurgence only amplified the squeeze. With McLaren soaring and Red Bull rebuilding momentum, Ferrari found themselves trapped in the kind of technical pincer movement that leaves even proud teams quietly updating their long-term planning decks. In that environment, pushing for second or third place became less a noble battle and more a resource-draining exercise in futility.
So, perhaps Ferrari did what any rational, slightly exhausted outfit would: they stepped back, accepted the beating, and shifted focus to the clean slate of 2026. McLaren may not have single-handedly ended Ferrari’s 2025 ambitions, but they certainly hastened the retreat.
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Leclerc didn’t sugarcoat the early-season reality. Ferrari were on the back foot from race one
“We were at a technical disadvantage from the very first race,” he said. “It’s not as if the decision to halt development of the SF-25 radically changed our approach.”
In other words: whether they developed or not, this car wasn’t about to start beating McLaren unless the papaya cars spontaneously disintegrated.
“So, there wasn’t really any reason to dedicate all our resources to trying to secure third or second place. If everything went perfectly, at the expense of next year,” Leclerc continued.
It’s the sort of pragmatic thinking that sounds sensible, unless you’re a Tifosi who bought tickets expecting excitement.
Leclerc insists he would have preferred to keep pushing, developing, and chasing that world title, even if the numbers didn’t add up. But he also recognises reality: “If you’re in the position we were in at the start of the year, it was an obvious choice. I don’t regret it.”
Onward to 2026: Where Hope Springs Eternal
Ferrari now turns its full attention to next season’s revolutionary regulations. New cars, new aerodynamic philosophies, new opportunities to either stun the paddock or disappoint an entire country before springtime.
But for now, Leclerc and Ferrari can finally close the book on 2025, a season that never quite lifted off, but at least gave them plenty of reasons to look forward to the next one. And if the 2026 car isn’t a rocket? Well, by then, they’ll be talking about 2027.
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Having moved to Ferrari this season in a fanfare of Italian PR, Lewis Hamilton has described this year as a “nightmare” and his “worst season ever in Formula One.”
The seven times champion’s year peaked at round two in China, where he qualified on pole for the Sprint before going on to win the shortened for race on Saturday morning. Yet the cruel racing gods intervened, and both Hamilton and his team mate were disqualified from the Grand Prix on Sunday for excessive wear of the SF-25 skid blocks.
Ferrari introduced a new suspension upgrade in Belgium to deal with the ride height issues which plagued their car, yet since the new component, their average points scored each weekend has fallen from 19 to 14.
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The group president John Elkann praised the engineers and mechanics for the improvements he claimed they had made to the car, despite the actual deterioration in their statistics, going on to tell his drivers to “talk less and focus more on the driving.”
Clearly Maranello is a divided place and unlike Carlos Sainz at Williams who has overcome his switch of team, Hamilton cuts a lonesome figure in the paddock and is still sending in “documents” for the team to consider in how to improve their operation.
In Qatar, Fred Vasseur was asked why Ferrari’s form had collapsed since the final six races of 2024, when their SF-24 was by far the quickest car. He dodged the fact that Ferrari had in a moment of madness decided to build a completely new car and run a push rod suspension, a design they have no experience with.
“Quite early in the season, McLaren was so dominating in the first four or five events that we realised it would be very difficult for 2025,” said Vasseur. “It meant that we decided very early in the season, I think it was the end of April, to switch (the development focus) to ’26. It was a…READ MORE ON THIS ARTICLE
A senior writer at TJ13, C.J. Alderson serves as Senior Editor and newsroom coordinator, with a background in online sports reporting and motorsport magazine editing. Alderson’s professional training in media studies and experience managing content teams ensures TJ13 maintains consistency of voice and credibility. During race weekends, Alderson acts as desk lead, directing contributors and smoothing breaking stories for publication.
