Ferrari SF-25 analysis: Worst-kept secret not the only big change as Ferrari aim high

Ferrari were not due to launch their F1 2025 challenger, the SF-25, until today.

But given that they unveiled their livery as part of the F1 75 live event at the O2 Arena on Tuesday, the Scuderia opted to give us a sneak peak of their machine ahead of the physical launch via their social media feeds.

Aside from the obvious change to the livery, there’s a whole host of revisions that have been made to this year’s car, with plenty more to be revealed in the coming weeks as the development cycle kicks into overdrive.

The worst-kept secret

Don’t tell anyone at Ferrari anything if you want it kept a secret, as it’s been common knowledge that they planned on making the switch to pull-rod front suspension this season for several months now.

The adoption of a pull-rod front suspension layout sees Ferrari follow in the footsteps of their rivals, Red Bull and McLaren, who’d already adopted the arrangement at the beginning of this regulatory cycle.

It’s a decision that will clearly have some mechanical ramifications, with the steering assembly also re-organised to facilitate its application but, the primary reason behind this sort of decision is usually led by the performance that can be unlocked from an aerodynamic perspective.

In making the switch to a pull-rod layout the designers have also busied themselves with optimising all of the front suspension’s fairings in order to maximise how the airflow behaves en route to the sidepods and floor downstream.

There’s a number of changes in those areas too, with a serrated transition at the rear of the outboard floor fence, whilst it seems the team are returning to an inboard floor fence design that sits above the tide line created by the leading edge of the floor.

The latter of these two is a design that had previously featured on the F1-75 but was abandoned during the car’s development phase, as a low-level fence once again took its place.

However, as we saw in the latter phase of last season, the Scuderia has begun to backtrack, with the refurbishments made to their wind tunnel allowing their designers to revisit certain ideas, concepts and updates that hadn’t heralded the performance leap that their simulation tools had initially predicted when the parts arrived at the track.

The SF-25’s sidepods have also been refined, with the overbite-style inlet fully incorporated into this year’s challenger, with its predecessor having started its campaign with an underbite arrangement and modified at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix to follow the trend set out by their rivals.

This revised layout also saw the previously separated vertical and horizontal inlets combined to form the widely adopted P-shaped arrangement, of which the SF-25 also utilses.

However, there’s now a much narrower upper opening that’s more akin to the layout used by McLaren, which also includes the introduction of a mid-wing.

Out of sight there’s also undoubtedly a huge amount of work carried out beneath the bodywork, in order to reorganise the various radiators and power unit ancillaries and optimise them around this layout.

This mid-wing also features a wingtip endplate that’s taller at the leading edge and slopes down and inward in order to meet with the sidepod bodywork thereafter.

Above this, there’s further alterations too, this time to the mirror housing and stalks.

The Scuderia now has a full width slat-like arrangement, the profile of which is twisted across its span to impart a different aerodynamic response with the mirror body that’s mounted above it in the outboard portion and the freestream it encounters between the two vertical stays.

A vertical baffle has also been added alongside the inboard wall of the mirror body, once again as a means to alter how the airflow behaves around the bluff body and improve efficiency not only locally but offer aerodynamic support to its surroundings, such as the inlet and upper surface of the sidepod.

Speaking of which, the sidepod’s upper body work has been carefully optimised around the forward shoulder in order to create a ridge line along the perimeter of the sidepod, further enhancing the slide formed in the down sloping portion of the bodywork.

The Cobra winglets that flank the halo have also returned, albeit they now have a spar that connects them to the side of the cockpit, whilst the shallow curved winglets mounted atop the halo that Ferrari have used in the past have also resurfaced.

The engine cover design has also been overhauled, with no shark fin present on its spine, replaced instead by a series of louvred openings, similar to the ones first seen on the Alpine A523 and used by Ferrari stablemate Haas.

The crushed-style bodywork at the rear of the engine cover that exposes the outlets ahead of it has been carried over from last year and offers a channel for the rejected heat to travel en route to the trailing edge of the main cooling exit at the rear of the engine cover.

The floor edge detailing shown in the renders is similar to the layout used in the closing stages of last season, but is subject to change during pre-season testing as the team begin to look for areas to develop and find performance.

The rear wing shown is also a new specification, with a deeper central section present on the mainplane that’s reflected in the contouring on the upper surface around the central mounting pillar and DRS actuator pod.

The overall design of the wing is similar to the one introduced by McLaren at the Brazilian Grand Prix last season.

However, the tip section see’s the team return to a previous design layout, whereby it is folded down over the mainplane portion of the endplate, allowing for an enlarged cut out thereafter.

The beam wing specification shown is similar to their medium downforce offering of last season, whilst the small winglets mounted either side of the rear wing pillar have also returned.

Read more: First shakedown footage emerges as Ferrari SF-25 breaks cover in Fiorano