The 2025 Singapore Grand Prix was supposed to be a pivotal moment in Ferrari’s quest to reclaim its glory, especially with its new star, Lewis Hamilton, at the helm. After a challenging start to the season, the British driver seemed to have finally found harmony with his SF25.

Expectations within the Maranello camp were immense, with whispers of a potential championship comeback, a change in momentum, and even a podium finish if things went well. However, what unfolded on that fateful afternoon at the Marina Bay Street Circuit was the complete opposite. It wasn’t just a race; it was a humiliation, a deep scar etched into the already fragile reputation of the legendary team.

Everything began to unravel just three laps from the end. Hamilton, fighting tooth and nail to maintain a crucial points-paying position, started to feel a severe degradation in his car’s braking power. At first, it seemed like a routine case of overheating—a common issue on a circuit as demanding as Singapore. But it quickly became clear that this was a much more serious failure.

The front-left wheel began to emit visible sparks, an unmistakable sign of a structural failure. The most alarming part wasn’t the visual spectacle, but the total loss of control in the car’s most critical area: the brakes.

In a matter of seconds, Hamilton was completely at the mercy of his machine. Turns 2, 16, and 17 became the stage for a desperate struggle to avoid retirement, or worse. The car repeatedly went off track, forcing the driver into impromptu defensive maneuvers that had little to do with racing strategy. The onboard camera captured the raw struggle: the steering wheel spinning wildly, the brake pedal unresponsive, and a driver with decades of experience doing the impossible just to stay on the track. To a casual spectator, this might have looked like an unfortunate mechanical fault, one of many that occur in Formula 1. But for those who understand the language of mechanical failures, it was evident this was no coincidence. The failure occurred in a critical area of the car, at a pivotal moment in the race, with no immediate precedent to justify such a sudden breakdown.

The tension escalated when the FIA intervened, penalizing Hamilton with a five-second penalty for repeatedly exceeding track limits. Under normal circumstances, this might seem fair, but in this context, it was almost absurd. Punishing a driver who could barely stop his car felt more like a symbolic condemnation than a coherent application of the rules. The reaction in the garage was one of confusion. The engineers’ faces showed frustration, but also fear. Not because of the result itself, but because they knew this was not an isolated failure, nor a driver error; it was a symptom of something much deeper. What erupted at that moment was not just a loss of points; it was the beginning of a technical fire that, days later, would escalate into an internal scandal within Ferrari itself. This incident didn’t just damage Hamilton’s confidence; it damaged the project’s credibility, the car, and the entire season. And worst of all, it left an unanswered question hanging in the air: How many more times can Ferrari allow itself to fail at this level before its entire structure collapses?

What began as a crisis on the track transformed into an institutional earthquake just 48 hours after the Singapore Grand Prix, when internal leaks came to light, threatening the stability of the Ferrari team. The radio communications between Lewis Hamilton and his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, were merely the tip of the iceberg. The real shock came from a statement by a member of the technical team who, under the condition of anonymity, provided alarming details about the root cause of the failure in Hamilton’s car. This leak revealed that the SF25 suffers from a design defect that directly affects the brake cooling system. Specifically, the chassis is not properly adapted to dissipate the heat generated by braking on urban circuits, where natural ventilation is limited and thermal loads reach extreme levels.

The engineer’s statement was devastating: “We knew from the simulations in Maranello that the design had limitations, but there was no willingness to make structural changes before the season began.” That comment opened a dangerous door, because it implied this was not an accidental failure or an unforeseen technical issue; it was a conscious decision to ignore a known weakness, a design negligence apparently endorsed by the team’s technical leadership. The fact that Hamilton was the first to be severely affected only adds more fuel to the fire, especially considering his status as a new star signing. Ferrari, which had sold the idea that the seven-time champion was joining a solid project, was now exposed as a structure that continues to repeat historical errors disguised as promises of a resurrection.

The radio exchange during the race was revealing of the tension. On lap 60, Hamilton reported he had lost the front-left brake. His tone was direct but calm. Adami’s response was an attempt to contain the situation: “Box for brakes, they will come back.” But the brakes didn’t come back, and the situation worsened with the next exchange. “Don’t cut the corners,” the engineer told him, to which Hamilton replied drily but forcefully, “I’m not trying to cut the circuit, mate.” It was a line loaded with frustration, not just because of the technical situation, but because it showed that his own team did not understand the severity of the problem he was experiencing inside the car. That disconnect between driver and engineer exposed an even deeper problem: a loss of confidence in internal processes. When an elite driver like Hamilton perceives that his team doesn’t understand what he’s going through on the track, the damage transcends the technical; it’s an emotional crack, a fracture in communication that, in the heat of a battle for vital points, can cost more than a simple penalty.

Following the leak, rumors spread like wildfire in the paddock. Some media outlets suggested that members of the aerodynamics department were considering resigning; others mentioned tensions between the design area and those responsible for simulation. There was even talk of a possible direct intervention by Frédéric Vasseur to restructure the technical organization mid-season. But the severity of the matter was not just in what was said, but in what could no longer be hidden: the car had a structural failure, and someone within the team had decided to make it public. This act was not just a desperate cry from the inside; it was a formal accusation against Ferrari’s development model, against the culture of silence that has allowed errors to persist for decades.

The SF25, far from being the tool that would propel Hamilton to an eighth title, has become a warning symbol: a car that, by design, cannot perform under certain conditions; a project that was born with cracks, and an organization that apparently still has not learned from its own defeats. Sources close to Maranello indicate that Frédéric Vasseur has convened an internal review of all structural verification and aerodynamic validation processes. Changes in the technical direction and strategic replacements in critical areas such as simulation and thermal development are not being ruled out. But the real challenge is cultural. Ferrari remains a team where external pressure and the weight of history condition every move; where the fear of error often surpasses the will to innovate. And for a driver like Hamilton, that is a toxic ecosystem.

The team’s immediate future will depend on two key factors. First, its ability to redesign critical parts of the SF25 in record time without compromising the car’s overall reliability. And second, its ability to rebuild the relationship with Hamilton, because if that bond is eroded beyond the point of no return, they will not only lose a competitive asset; they will lose the symbol of their renewed ambition, and with it, any possibility of returning to the top.

Singapore 2025 will not be remembered merely as a night race that tested the physical limits of the drivers, nor will it be remembered only as the race in which Lewis Hamilton suffered one of the most alarming technical failures of his recent career. It will be remembered as the moment when Ferrari once again showed the world that its Achilles’ heel has not changed: the chronic inability to sustain a coherent and bulletproof technical project in the long term. The brake failure, the radio disconnect, the internal leak, the exposure of a flawed design—all are part of an ecosystem that has not yet managed to modernize at the pace required by contemporary Formula 1. Ferrari does not suffer from a lack of resources; it suffers from a disconnection between the highest levels of decision-making and the technical realities at the operational level, from an organizational culture that still prioritizes symbolic prestige over structural efficiency.

Hamilton arrived at Ferrari with a mission: to close his career at the top, leaving a historic footprint in the only legendary team he had never belonged to. But after what happened in Singapore, it is not unreasonable to wonder if that decision was rushed, or if the environment he found in Maranello is truly prepared to sustain the weight of his ambition. The case of the SF25 could become a warning for the entire structure of the Scuderia. It doesn’t matter how talented your drivers are, how many titles are in their showcases, or how brilliant your media campaigns are. If your car fails in the essentials, if your base concept is flawed from the design phase, none of that matters. Because Formula 1 punishes weakness without mercy, and it does so in public, with no time for quiet repairs. The big question on the table is disturbing: What lessons will Ferrari learn from this technical collapse? Will this scandal be the catalyst for a deep restructuring, or simply another episode that will be swept under the carpet while the team tries to minimize the damage? And what do you think? Can Ferrari still right the ship with Hamilton in command, or are we witnessing the beginning of a foretold disappointment? Let us know in the comments.