FERRARI HAS THE WORST ON-TRACK RESULTS IN 2025: THE REASONS BEHIND IT
With the results of the Qatar Grand Prix, Ferrari ended the 2025 Formula 1 season in fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship, a result that felt below the expectations usually placed on the Italian team. The year was marked by inconsistency, limited development, and a growing gap to the front of the field.
The team struggled to keep pace with McLaren, Mercedes, and Red Bull, who showed stronger and more stable performance throughout the season. Ferrari’s car lacked the speed needed to fight for regular podiums, and the team often found itself stuck in the midfield battle instead of challenging at the front.
One of the main reasons for this drop was Ferrari’s decision to slow down development of the 2025 car to focus on the new rules coming in 2026. This long-term strategy may help in the future, but it left the team exposed in the short term. Races often showed the same pattern: good pace in practice, difficulty in qualifying, and races spent trying to limit damage.
For a team with Ferrari’s history, finishing fourth is never satisfying, it affects confidence and the general mood around the factory. Mainly in Qatar, we have seen how both drivers struggled to stay even within the top 10:
Lewis Hamilton did not make it to Q2 in both Sprint and main race qualifying sessions. Charles Leclerc finished Sunday’s race in eighth, after being outside the points in the Sprint race (P13), to not talk about Lewis’ results in both races: P17 in the Sprint and P12 on Sunday.
It is obvious that the Lusail racing circuit does not fit Ferrari’s type of track, with mid and high-speed corners, the car often struggled with rear-end balance and tyre wear management.
However, two key factors have contributed to Ferrari’s poor result in Qatar. The first, may be obvious to the majority of the spectators, the difficulty in overtaking in this specific track is noticeable.
Firstly, the dirty air through the fast corners of the last sector, did not allow drivers to get closer to each other for the 1 kilometer long start/finish straight. Dirty air has four times more effect in 2025 (20%) than in 2022 (5%), first year of the modern ground effect era. Drivers are not able to use all the aerodynamic efficiency through the corners when there is a car at least 2 seconds ahead, hence why Norris struggled to overtake Antonelli today.
The drivers also complained about the short DRS zone, which began only a few meters after the finish line. Because DRS becomes more effective toward the end of a long straight, the limited distance left them with almost no time to close the gap before reaching turn 1, making overtaking much harder.
For this reason, the final result for most of the drivers was based on their qualifying result, race start and retirements ahead.
The second key factor that denied Ferrari of an average result in Qatar, is that the current F1 cars only work well in a very small setup range.
They get most of their grip from the floor, and it behaves correctly only if the car’s height and angle are almost perfect. Even a few millimetres off can make the car lose downforce. The suspension has to be very stiff to keep the car stable, which then makes bumps and kerbs harder to handle.
Tyres also need to be in the right temperature range. A setup that does not get the aero window right, might hurt the tyres. All of this means that teams have almost no room to get things right, it is a very strict window. Tiny changes in setup such as small tweaks, changes in the track temperature, or general conditions can completely turn the whole situation upside down.
Thus, the unusual format with the Sprint race this weekend, limited Ferrari to do a complete research of the setup in a track where the car itself struggles with balance already.
Abu Dhabi is yet another track with the presence of a high wear of the tires, one of the aspects that Ferrari struggled the most with throughout the season. Nevertheless, both drivers will try to finish the season on a high, mainly Lewis Hamilton, who has spent every round this season podiumless.
The desire of the whole crew is to get rid of the car as soon as possible and move on to the new regulations.
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