Ferrari has shared the first images of its 2025 F1 challenger, the SF-25, offering an early look at the design of the new car.
Ferrari teases the SF-25
While the livery for this season has already been revealed at the F1 75 Live event in London, these newly released renders offer a highly anticipated first look at what to expect from Ferrari’s actual 2025 car.
Ferrari has opted to stick to the sequential naming convention it has used for the past few seasons, with the SF-25 being a successor to last year’s SF-24.
Regarding the technical concept of the car, Ferrari has stated that the SF-25 is “completely new, designed as an evolution of last year’s car.”
Updated look
The new livery features a prominent white section across its engine cover, highlighting the logo of major sponsor HP. The back of the rear wing is painted blue, the space similarly dedicated to one of Ferrari’s newest partners, IBM.
As for the main colour, “the darker shade of 2025 Racing Red with its matte finish, evokes decades of racing, taking its inspiration from the intense tones of the early days of the Scuderia, with an angled, bold white band standing out as a distinctive feature on the car, symbolising dynamism and a vision that looks to the future.
“The contrast between white and red is a tribute to the marque’s history and identity, and to the continuous evolution of Ferrari style, a manifesto for refined sportiness and timeless aesthetics.”
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur on the 2025 car:
“In 2024 we were fighting until the last corner of the last lap for the team championship and we want to start the season on the same basis.
“I think we have a good package with a good car, good lineup and we really want to do a step forward. To achieve it we have to put everything together to minimise the mistake and probably to continue the development that we did the last two or three years.”
Technical details
“The SF-25 development started in March 2024, so we’re all looking forward to the new car. About the SF-25, this car is an evolution of the SF-24,” said Loic Serra, Technical Director Chassis, who joined the Scuderia in October.
“It did show some good potential. So, in that regard, it was a good basis to build on. If you look more into the details of what has been the target of the SF-25 development, it’s been principally an architectural development of the car.
“What I mean by that is the fact that we have tried to boost the potential development of the car by making more space around the chassis.”
Ferrari also confirmed its transition to a pullrod front suspension set-up for its 2025 car.
“The front suspension of the SF-25 is a pullrod, and the SF-24 has a pushrod front suspension,” said Serra.
“This is the visible part of the iceberg, because in reality we’ve changed 99% of the car. But in terms of architectural evolution of the car, the front suspension is a key element of it.
“Having said that, as I mentioned earlier, 99% of the car has been changed. The 2025 season is going to be a tight battle, and every millisecond will count. At the end of four years of relatively stable regulation, you’ve got to dig deeper.”
SF-25’s power unit
Due to Formula 1’s power unit freeze, engine performance remains locked. Ferrari has therefore opted to maximise the potential of their existing package, as any advantages could still prove meaningful, especially in a tightly contested season. Component longevity will also be crucial.
“The essence of our work is always to extract the maximum potential of and from whatever we are doing at the end, so this really didn’t change in the last season,” said Enrico Gualtieri, Technical Director Power Unit.
“[Since the power unit freeze] we obviously more and more focused ourselves in trying to extract the maximum potential from the power unit, regardless of the conditions or the circuit where it is operated.
“So we mainly worked on power unit control and performance optimisation in trying to get the most out of our procedures and obviously being sure that everything is set at its nominal performance at every single event.
“This is really how and where we prepared the 2025 season, and it’s important because we simply moved from the design and development of the new hardware into different areas mainly in terms of operations, preparations and at the end execution of our power unit being operated at the track.
“It’s true that what we learned from last season or eventually what we have as a confirmation from last season is that despite the power unit being frozen, reliability is never a given because any single unexpected event could really reverse into unexpected consequences, troubles, issues and any kind of criticality. So quality, preparation, component consistency will be crucial in the coming season.”
Official launch of the 2025 F1 car and Fiorano shakedown
The official launch of the SF-25 is set to take place in Maranello on Wednesday morning. A shakedown is expected to follow at the Fiorano test circuit, where the SF-25 will be making its on-track debut. Both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton will get behind the wheel over the course of the filming day. The session will allow the drivers to familiarise themselves with the new car and gather initial performance feedback.
Looking ahead to the 2025 F1 season
Last year, Ferrari was able to recover from its brief development slump to come back stronger, particularly in the second half of the season, claiming emphatic wins in Monza, Austin, and Mexico City, for a total of five victories in 2024. These strong performances kept them in mathematical contention until the final round in Abu Dhabi, where the Italian team ultimately lost out to McLaren, who clinched their first Constructors’ title since 1998.
Ferrari enters the 2025 season with high expectations as it looks to emulate McLaren and break its own long-standing title drought, which dates back to 2008.
The upcoming Fiorano shakedown will be the first indication of how the SF-25 behaves on track before the team heads to Bahrain for three days of official pre-season testing from February 26-28.
