Ferrari will reportedly take to the Mugello circuit on Wednesday for a filming day with the SF-25 fitted with the long-awaited new rear suspension design.
The Scuderia are hoping the new design is the key to resolving the car’s ride-height issues.
Ferrari will be in action at Mugello on Wednesday
Ferrari have grappled with a ride-height issue with the SF-25 throughout the F1 2025 championship, with Lewis Hamilton revealing in Japan that they are “running higher than we would like”.
That was because of his Chinese GP disqualification for excessive skid plank wear, but the knock-on effect of raising the car was that it hampered performance.
“Maybe they have a car that’s very sensitive to ride height in terms of aero performance,” mused former Aston Martin strategist Bernie Collins on Sky F1. “All of these cars are because they’re all ground-effect cars, but maybe it is more sensitive than others.”
She added: “Maybe the aero platform is too peaky.”
More recently, Ted Kravitz highlighted the issue after the Ferrari team-mates were told to lift-and-coast at the Austrian Grand Prix.
“The reason they have to do this is that they have this problem with their ride heights, whereby they can’t run the car on heavy fuel as low as they want,” he said. “They ask the drivers to lift and coast just so the car comes up a bit and it can just glide into the corners.
“It’s not a tyre-wear thing, it’s not a fuel thing, it’s not a brakes thing, it’s not any of that. It’s to protect, we believe, the ride height, the floor, the plank of the car, which they got disqualified [for] from the Chinese Grand Prix and since when the car has not been the same.”
Heading into the second half of the season, Ferrari are set to introduce what they hope will be the solution to the ride-height issue – a new rear suspension.
According to Motorsport.com, test bench tests have been carried out and they are said to have yielded ‘positive’ results.
That, coupled with the new floor that they introduced at the Red Bull Ring ‘could bring up to a tenth of a second of performance’.
Ferrari will have a slightly better understanding of the new suspension come Wednesday.
Hamilton and Charles Leclerc will take to the Mugello circuit for a day of filming, Ferrari permitted 200km of running on the day with the drivers splitting the allocation.
The FIA’s regulations for ‘TCC Promotional Events [PE]’ state, first and foremost, that ‘a Promotional Event (PE) shall be defined as an event in which a Competitor participates purely for marketing or promotional purposes’.
The remainder of the rules are:
* A PE must not exceed 200km and only one may be carried out per team per day.
* During any PE, cars must be fitted with the FIA ECU required by Article 8.3 of the Technical Regulations.
* Only tyres manufactured specifically for this purpose by the appointed tyre supplier may be used.
* Each Competitor will be permitted to carry out two (2) PE’s with the cars defined in Article 10.1 which will not be considered a TCC.
The final point refers to the current car.
The Ferrari team-mates will only be permitted a combined total of 38 laps of the 5.245km Mugello circuit.
Should the car perform as hoped, Ferrari are expected to use the new rear suspension at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The new rear suspension has been billed as the potential final breakthrough before Ferrari call time on their F1 2025 development and switch focus to 2026’s all-new car.
It’s the last roll of the development dice as the team tries to hold off Mercedes in the battle for second in the Constructors’ Championship behind McLaren. Ferrari are only 12 points ahead of Mercedes.
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