The air in Maranello was thick with anticipation. When the news broke that Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion, would be donning the iconic scarlet overalls, the Formula 1 world collectively held its breath.

It was a partnership that seemed destined for greatness, a fusion of motorsport’s most decorated driver and its most legendary team.

The expectation wasn’t just for wins; it was for an era of dominance. Yet, as the 2025 season unfolds, the dream has curdled into a frustrating and public nightmare.

The prancing horse, once a symbol of racing pedigree, is limping, and its new champion rider is struggling to tame a machine that seems to have a will of its own: the unpredictable and deeply flawed SF-25.

The source of Ferrari’s woes is a bold, perhaps reckless, gamble. Instead of evolving their successful 2024 challenger, the team’s engineers opted for a radical, all-new design for the SF-25. The ambition was to leapfrog the competition, but they instead stumbled into a technical quagmire. The car’s fundamental problem became glaringly apparent early in the season. At the Chinese Grand Prix, Hamilton suffered the ignominy of disqualification. The cause? Excessive wear on the car’s plank—a direct consequence of the car bottoming out on the track. The immediate fix was a crude one: raise the ride height. In the highly precise world of F1 aerodynamics, this was akin to performing surgery with a sledgehammer.

Raising the car compromised its entire aerodynamic philosophy. The carefully sculpted floor, designed to generate massive downforce by running millimeters from the asphalt, was now operating outside its optimal window. The result was a significant loss of downforce, making the car slower in the corners and alarmingly unstable. Drivers began reporting that the SF-25 was “twitchy” and unpredictable, a terrifying characteristic when navigating corners at over 180 mph. The car’s balance, the delicate harmony between front and rear grip, was gone.

Ferrari’s attempts to rectify the situation only compounded the problem. A series of upgrades, including a new floor and a revised rear suspension, were rushed to the Austrian and Belgian Grands Prix. These were meant to be the silver bullets that would solve the ride height and stability issues. Instead, they misfired. The upgrades failed to deliver the expected performance, and driver frustration mounted. A telling moment came in Hungary, where Charles Leclerc managed to secure a stunning pole position. However, this wasn’t a sign of a breakthrough. It was later revealed that the team had resorted to an unorthodox setup, using unusually high tire pressures to physically prevent the car from bottoming out—a risky, temporary fix that was not a sustainable solution.

The core of the issue, as reported by insiders at Motorsport Italia, is a persistent instability in the car’s ride height and its erratic handling, particularly under braking. This makes it impossible for the drivers to trust the car, to push it to its absolute limit, which is where races are won and lost. When a driver brakes for a corner, they need to have complete confidence that the car will respond predictably. With the SF-25, that confidence is shattered. The instability may also be linked to an aerodynamic inconsistency at the front of the car, creating a cascade of balance problems through every phase of a corner.

For Lewis Hamilton, this technical morass has made his transition to Ferrari one of the most challenging periods of his illustrious career. After twelve seasons in the well-oiled machine of Mercedes, arriving at a team in the midst of a technical crisis is a harsh reality check. The statistics, when laid bare, paint a brutal picture of his struggle. In the head-to-head battle with his teammate Charles Leclerc, Hamilton is trailing significantly. Leclerc holds a dominant 10-4 advantage in qualifying and an even more telling 11-2 lead in race finishes where both drivers saw the checkered flag. The numbers don’t lie; Leclerc is, at present, extracting far more from the difficult machinery.

However, Leclerc himself has been quick to defend his new teammate, cautioning against premature judgments. “It’s far too early to draw conclusions,” he stated, acknowledging the monumental task of adapting to a new team, new systems, and a new environment after more than a decade in one place. “My focus is on working with Lewis to bring Ferrari back to the top. He is still learning how everything works here.” His words highlight a crucial point: Hamilton is not just battling a difficult car; he is battling muscle memory, instincts honed over thousands of hours in a different cockpit.

The seven-time champion’s mindset remains his greatest weapon. Over the summer break, Hamilton retreated to Greece for a quiet escape, a period of reflection and recharging. He spoke of the importance of embracing “truth and love,” signaling a desire to return for the second half of the season with renewed focus and a clear mind. It is this mental fortitude that Ferrari is counting on, the champion’s ability to dig deep and lead the team out of its current predicament.

While the 2025 season looks increasingly like a write-off, a glimmer of hope shines on the horizon: the sweeping regulation changes of 2026. The new era of Formula 1 promises a dramatic reset, with cars that are smaller, 30 kg lighter, and feature active aerodynamics to replace the current Drag Reduction System (DRS). The biggest change, however, lies with the power units, which will see a 50/50 split between electric and internal combustion power, running on advanced, sustainable biofuels.

Ferrari’s team principal, Fred Vasseur, believes this technical revolution is the team’s golden opportunity. He argues that the key to success in 2026 will not be raw power, but “drivability.” With such a massive shift in car philosophy, the teams that can produce a car that is balanced, consistent, and predictable—giving its drivers the confidence to push—will be the ones who triumph. Vasseur astutely likens the potential for a competitive shake-up to the legendary 2009 season, where Brawn GP, with its innovative double diffuser, rose from the ashes of the Honda team to win the championship.

This is where Ferrari, and Hamilton, can find optimism. The struggles of the SF-25, while painful, are providing harsh lessons. The 2026 regulations offer a clean slate, a chance to apply those lessons and build from the ground up. For a team with Ferrari’s resources and a driver with Hamilton’s experience, this is a tantalizing prospect. It’s an opportunity to end the championship drought that has plagued the Scuderia since 2008 and finally deliver on the promise of their blockbuster partnership. The road ahead is fraught with challenges, but in the unpredictable world of Formula 1, a complete reset could be exactly what the prancing horse needs to gallop once more to the front of the pack.