Loic Serra, the Chassis Technical Director at Ferrari, recently shed light on the Scuderia’s pursuit of enhanced qualifying performance. The team aims to achieve this without compromising the impressive race pace demonstrated by their 2025 Formula 1 machine. This comes in the wake of Ferrari’s track record of producing F1 cars with impressive one-lap speed that, unfortunately, struggle under race conditions.
In the ground effect era alone, Ferrari has claimed 23 pole positions but only 10 race victories spanning three seasons. The 2023 SF-23 model, in particular, was notably inadequate when it came to tyre management. However, the tide seemed to turn last year, and despite the SF-24’s lacklustre tyre warm-up, which hampered its one-lap speed, Ferrari secured more race victories than pole positions – a feat not achieved since 2017.
The unveiling of the SF-25 was accompanied by Serra’s comments to select media outlets, including Motorsport Week. He highlighted the importance of shaving off precious milliseconds on a single lap to secure crucial grid positions. However, he insisted this must not be achieved at the expense of the commendable race pace demonstrated last year.
Serra emphasized the importance of maintaining and improving the long-run strength of the car. He acknowledged the potential for minor enhancements in first-lap performance to significantly impact grid position, especially considering that 30 milliseconds could equate to a shift in one position. He also noted the importance of tyre performance in this equation. The team is investing heavily in this area, but Serra stressed that the relative gain will also depend on what rival teams are doing.
The 2024 F1 season was fiercely competitive, with Ferrari being one of the four winning teams – a group that also included McLaren, Red Bull, and Mercedes. However, the real battleground was not centred on winning races but on the razor-thin margins in qualifying.
Illustrating the intensity of the competition, the 2024 finale in Abu Dhabi saw the difference between second and tenth position on the grid being a mere four-tenths of a second. Former Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz missed placing the Scuderia on the front row by a minuscule two-hundredths of a second.
Throughout most of last year’s campaign, a few tenths of a second was all that separated the pole position from the third or even fourth row of the grid. With overtaking still a significant challenge in Grand Prix racing, securing a strong track position is crucial.
Despite Ferrari’s strong long-run pace, any minor mishap in qualifying, coupled with difficulties in tyre warm-up, could knock the team out of victory contention even before the race begins. Hence, the team has invested “a lot of effort” in chasing those final milliseconds, according to Serra. However, the risk of losing the recently acquired race pace cannot be underestimated.
In a nutshell, Ferrari is ambitiously seeking one-lap gains in F1 racing for 2025 but is careful not to sacrifice their hard-earned long-run pace in the process. As the team continues to innovate and evolve, the world of motorsport watches eagerly to see what they will achieve next.