Fresh from their appearance at Tuesday night’s F1 season launch event at London’s O2 when the car’s latest livery was displayed on a show car, the Scuderia were back on home soil on Wednesday morning for the first laps in their actual 2025 machine.
With new signing Hamilton watching on from the garage at their Fiorano test track, Charles Leclerc completed the first laps in the SF-25.
Hamilton then took over the car for his own run in the afternoon, ahead of the seven-time world champion speaking to the media later in the day for the first time as a Ferrari driver.
Ferrari can complete a 200km shakedown with the car ahead of the start of official pre-season testing next week, which takes place in Bahrain on February 26-28 – live on Sky Sports F1.
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Although F1’s regulations for 2025 are static, Ferrari have made one significant change to their car by switching from push to pull-road front suspension in order to open up more avenues for aerodynamic development.
Explaining the notable change to the front of the car, Ferrari said in a statement: “The thinking behind this change in architecture was to clean up the airflow around the car, while also giving greater scope for further aero development, which had pretty much been exhausted with the previous iteration.
“The car is an evolution from every aspect when compared to last year’s, which provided a good starting point. It was designed with the aim of maximising the development potential of the car, in a season when, thanks to the long stability of the regulations now in their final year, one can expect the field to be extremely evenly matched with just thousandths of a second in lap time making the difference.”
Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur has already made clear they start the year with the “aim of winning both titles” having finished last season strongly, ending up just 14 points behind new constructors’ champions McLaren.
On the SF-25 itself, chassis technical director Loic Serra said: “We have worked hard, changing 99 per cent of the car, evolving its architecture to maximise performance.
“The pull rod front suspension is only the most obvious of many significant changes. We can expect the coming season to be very closely contested, with outcomes decided by thousandths of a second. We are all set to give it our best shot to find those gains, even the marginal ones, that can make the difference. We are looking forward to being competitive right from the very first race.”
More to follow…
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