The 2025 Formula 1 season was supposed to be a renaissance for Scuderia Ferrari. With the blockbuster signing of seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton to partner with their golden boy, Charles Leclerc, the stage was set for a glorious return to championship contention.

Instead, the season has devolved into a public relations nightmare, a technical quagmire, and a brewing internal conflict that threatens to tear the team apart before the 2026 regulations even come into play.

The dream of a Hamilton-Leclerc dynasty is fading fast, replaced by the harsh reality of a team in crisis, haunted by past mistakes and gambling its future on a high-stakes technological bet that could either redeem them or plunge them into another era of mediocrity.

The numbers don’t lie. Halfway through the 2025 season, Ferrari has yet to secure a single race win. The SF-25, the Prancing Horse’s latest challenger, has been a shadow of its predecessors, consistently outpaced by rivals Red Bull, McLaren, and even a resurgent Mercedes. The competitive edge that flickered briefly in Monaco qualifying and Australian practice sessions vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving the team to battle for scraps in the midfield. Perhaps the most damning statistic is their precarious hold on third place in the constructor’s championship, with Red Bull’s junior team, fielding Yuki Tsunoda and rookie Liam Lawson for two races, breathing down their necks. A team with arguably the most talented driver pairing on the grid is being challenged by a team with a rookie. This isn’t just an underperformance; it’s an embarrassment.

The root of Ferrari’s on-track woes lies in a series of critical technical missteps. The SF-25 suffers from poor ride height management and a rear suspension so stiff that it causes excessive wear to the floor, leading to instability and a lack of predictable performance. But the car’s inherent flaws were compounded by a strategic decision that has left many in the paddock scratching their heads. Early in the season, Ferrari’s technical director, Loic Serra, who was brought in from Mercedes to shore up the team’s engineering department, made the controversial call to halt all aerodynamic development for several months. The entire focus shifted to fixing the troublesome suspension, a move that seemed logical on the surface—build a stable mechanical platform before optimizing aerodynamics.

However, in the relentless arms race of Formula 1, standing still is a death sentence. While Ferrari toiled away on their suspension, their rivals were churning out aero upgrades, finding tenths of a second with each new front wing and floor design. By the time Ferrari brought their much-anticipated updates, the rest of the grid had moved on. The “fixes” that were supposed to solve everything failed to deliver the expected leap in performance, leaving the chassis fundamentally flawed and the team even further behind. The car remains incredibly sensitive to track conditions, a characteristic that has plagued Ferrari for years. A drop in track temperature or a change in wind direction can cause the SF-25’s performance to fall off a cliff, a frustration that has been palpable in the exasperated radio messages from both Leclerc and Hamilton.

Beneath the surface of the technical failures, a more insidious problem is brewing—a conflict in driving philosophies that is creating a rift between their two star drivers. Charles Leclerc, a driver who has been molded by Ferrari, thrives in a car with a “slippery” rear end, one that he can rotate aggressively through the corners. Lewis Hamilton, on the other hand, has built his legendary career on a car with a stable platform, allowing him to maximize his phenomenal braking ability and tire management skills. The SF-25, in its current state, caters to neither.

Hamilton has been vocal about his struggles, stating that he feels “insufficiently supported” by the team and that the car’s driving style simply doesn’t work for him, leading to him “ruining his tires” in races. This is where the story takes a controversial turn. Multiple sources within the Maranello camp have suggested that the 2026 car, the machine that represents Ferrari’s next great hope, is being designed specifically around Lewis Hamilton’s driving style. This decision, made in the hope of providing the seven-time champion with a car capable of winning him a record-breaking eighth title, has created a political powder keg within the team.

What does this mean for Charles Leclerc? The Monegasque driver has been the faster of the two for the majority of the season, yet he now faces the prospect of a team building a car that is antithetical to his natural driving style. Does Ferrari risk alienating the driver they have nurtured since his karting days, the man they once hailed as the future of the Scuderia, to accommodate their superstar signing? The politics inside Maranello are said to be brutal, with team principal Fred Vasseur under immense pressure as internal frustrations over the lack of progress continue to mount. This is a classic Ferrari dilemma, a situation that echoes the team’s tumultuous history of favoring one driver over the other, often with disastrous consequences.

The stakes are raised even higher when considering Ferrari’s audacious gamble for the 2026 season. With the new regulations on the horizon, the team is pouring its resources into a radical new engine project that is one of the most aggressive technical gambles in recent Formula 1 history. The new power unit is designed to be extremely compact, utilizing revolutionary manufacturing techniques like 3D printing and direct metal laser sintering. The cylinder heads feature a new aluminum alloy mixed with copper and ceramics, designed to withstand higher pressures and temperatures, allowing the engine to run hotter and harder for more consistent power. The ultimate goal is to create an aerodynamically efficient package, with smaller radiators and tighter side pods, a philosophy inspired by Mercedes’ ill-fated “zeropod” concept from 2022.

If Ferrari gets it right, they could dominate the new era of Formula 1. But the risks are colossal. Early reports indicate issues with cylinder heads failing under the extreme pressures, a worrying sign for a team with a documented history of engine reliability problems. The aggressive engine failures of 2022, which cost Leclerc a potential championship, are still fresh in the memory of the Tifosi. The pattern is becoming painfully familiar: Ferrari makes a bold technical bet, runs into fundamental problems, spends months trying to fix them, and falls behind the development curve, only to repeat the cycle with the next car.

The 2026 regulations are supposed to be a reset, a chance for Ferrari to finally exorcise the demons of their recent past. The floor, their biggest problem area for years, will become less important. But what about the litany of other issues that have plagued the team? The questionable strategy calls, the inefficient setup work, the lack of accountability—these are organizational problems that new regulations cannot fix. The failed attempt to lure legendary designer Adrian Newey to Maranello is a testament to the team’s ongoing struggle to attract top-tier talent, leaving their aerodynamic leadership in question and the foundation for 2026 looking shakier than ever.

For Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc, the situation is incredibly frustrating. Two of the world’s best drivers, operating at the peak of their powers, are stuck in machinery that is simply not good enough. For Leclerc, it’s a familiar story of hope turning to disappointment. For Hamilton, who left the stability of Mercedes in pursuit of an eighth world championship, the 2025 season must feel like a chilling premonition of what’s to come. He is a driver who is used to fighting for wins, not for a place in the top ten. The current crisis is not just a test of his patience, but a challenge to his legacy.

Ferrari is a team caught in a vicious cycle. They are trapped between trying to fix the immediate problems of their flawed 2025 car and gambling their entire future on a radical 2026 concept that is fraught with risk. The internal tension between their star drivers, the pressure on the team’s leadership, and the pattern of technical missteps paint a grim picture for the sport’s most iconic team. The real question is not whether Ferrari can turn it around, but whether they are willing to address the deep-seated organizational issues that continue to produce these cycles of hope and despair. Because right now, all signs point to 2026 being another roll of the dice in a long line of gambles that haven’t paid off. The Prancing Horse is limping, and the road to redemption looks longer and more treacherous than ever.