Loic Serra explains why most influential improvements are these not seen

February 22, 2025

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Frederic Vasseur made it clear that the SF-25 just isn’t a revolution of its predecessor however quite an evolution, primarily as a result of the small margins in final yr’s championship confirmed that it was pointless to utterly change the automobile, however quite to concentrate on key areas.

Nonetheless, this doesn’t imply that Maranello’s newest creation doesn’t symbolize a transparent break from the earlier season’s automobile, as some modifications are extra important than they could seem.

Though the SF-24 ended the yr on an upward trajectory and fought for the Constructors’ Championship title till the ultimate race, it had reached its peak evolution. As usually occurs, extra substantial modifications had been wanted to unlock additional potential. Such interventions are usually postponed to the event of the next yr’s automobile, particularly in the event that they contain the chassis or important modifications to the suspension system.

This was additionally the case for the SF-25 venture, whose improvement, at the least in its embryonic section, started final March, effectively prematurely of the tip of final season. Nonetheless, it developed in parallel with the 2024 single-seater to know which areas required essentially the most radical interventions to unlock extra efficiency in 2025.

The improvements open new improvement paths
Talking on the sidelines of the filming day of the brand new automobile, throughout which the SF-25 accomplished its first kilometers, technical director Loic Serra emphasised this side and the way sure modifications, even seemingly minor ones, had been made particularly to transcend the boundaries of its predecessor.

“The work on the SF-25 started in March of final yr, so by way of improvement, it’s a development of the SF-24. It’s because I solely arrived at Ferrari in October when all the selections had already been made. However we should always not suppose that all the things was finalized as early as September as a result of it is a steady course of that lasts all through your entire season,” Loic Serra defined in a current interview for the Italian media after the official reveal of the brand new Ferrari Method 1 automobile for the 2025 championship.

“Basically, the method is to seek out room for enchancment in improvement. All of this had turn out to be unattainable with the SF-24. We basically needed to make sense of it by optimizing what we already had.”

“Because the technical laws have reached their last yr, with these vehicles, all the things relies on particulars. We centered on the entrance suspension, however that’s solely essentially the most seen a part of the tip of the iceberg. Many of the automobile is new, and it’s not essentially one thing that may be seen with the bare eye from the skin, however these are exactly the components which have the best affect,” added Loic Serra.

There are additionally many much less eye-catching however essential elements, such because the redesign of the gearbox and the modification of the wheelbase—modifications that go hand in hand with quite a few interventions aimed toward unlocking potential even within the medium-to-long time period. The swap to the pull-rod structure on the entrance is essentially the most simply noticeable innovation, however modifying the suspension structure and repositioning the elements additionally means rethinking airflow administration alongside the bodywork, opening up new improvement paths that had reached their restrict with the SF-24.

The event of the SF-25 was designed on two fronts
Ferrari’s engineers have due to this fact labored on two fronts. Some interventions had been aimed extra at delivering speedy efficiency, in order that, at the least within the engineers’ hopes, the 2025 venture could be aggressive proper from the beginning of the yr with out having to chase rivals.

Different modifications, then again, function a kind of groundwork for the medium time period, anticipating the updates that may arrive within the early a part of the championship. “The principle goal with the SF-25 was to create room to push aerodynamic improvement, but in addition, extra usually, for the updates that may come all through the season. The SF-24 ended the season very effectively, but it surely had turn out to be unattainable to seek out additional margin for efficiency enhancements.”

It’s not uncommon for sure winter modifications to be aimed extra at unlocking efficiency within the medium time period quite than instantly, and it’s no coincidence that Frederic Vasseur has defined how this yr’s improvement program can be versatile.

There can be a much less steep studying curve
Twelve months in the past, Ferrari was in a totally completely different scenario from the present one. In 2023, it determined to desert the idea that debuted with the F1-75, shifting in direction of options utilized by its rivals, with a definitive transition to a distinct philosophy that materialized with the SF-24.

This clearly required a interval of understanding the venture to higher grasp its functioning, in addition to its strengths and limitations. Quite the opposite, though there are important modifications this yr, such because the swap to the pull-rod suspension, the idea of the SF-25 has remained similar to that of its predecessor.

This can make the training curve much less steep than up to now: “Regardless that the automobile has modified rather a lot, it’s a continuation of its predecessor. We’ve got modified many inside elements, however the philosophy stays the identical. We hope that the event margin will give us that further increase in comparison with final yr.”

Particulars could make the distinction, beginning with the tires
Clearly, the Frenchman solely joined Ferrari as technical director final October, so many key venture selections had been really made by different engineers. Nonetheless, this doesn’t imply that Serra can not contribute as early as 2025 and never only for 2026.

In his earlier experiences, Serra was thought-about a tire specialist, and this is without doubt one of the areas the place Ferrari, like different groups, can nonetheless extract potential, notably in qualifying, the place final yr it struggled to get the tires into the best working window.

In current weeks, we’ve mentioned how some modifications adopted with the SF-25, notably within the suspension space, had been designed to handle a few of the weaknesses of its predecessor. This isn’t simply in regards to the entrance pull-rod suspension, which was chosen primarily for aerodynamic causes, however extra importantly in regards to the inside elements that make it up, such because the torsion bars and dampers, in an effort to maximise the efficiency of the Pirelli tires.

The SF-24 was a automobile that was light on its tires within the race, able to making them final a very long time, however to turn out to be an all-around aggressive automobile, it wanted to make progress in single-lap efficiency by enhancing tire administration. Reaching this steadiness is actually not easy, but it surely was one of many key strengths of the McLaren MCL38. A few of the modifications on the SF-25 are aimed exactly on this path.

Loic Serra himself is satisfied that, as an skilled in automobile dynamics, there’s nonetheless rather a lot to extract from the tires, particularly contemplating that with such a tightly packed grid, as is anticipated for many groups, each fraction of a second might make a big distinction in positioning and race prospects.

“If we take into consideration final yr’s grid, the automobile forward of us was about 30 milliseconds sooner. Based mostly on that, each single millisecond we will discover aerodynamically, within the suspension system, or, most significantly, in tire administration, actually makes a giant distinction. In qualifying, the tires may give extra.”