Ferrari’s biggest problem with their 2025 F1 car is now an ‘open secret’ to everyone in the paddock

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Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur would have known the Dutch Grand Prix was going to be tough for his team, but would never have envisioned walking away from Sunday’s race without scoring a point.

Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton both saw their races end at the same corner at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Hamilton made an odd mistake in drizzling rain to catch the end of the tyre barrier, seeing him fail to finish a race for the first time in his Ferrari career.

Leclerc’s race ended after his second pit stop, when a misjudged move from Andrea Kimi Antonelli spun him into the outside barrier, leaving him looking melancholy sitting on the dunes on the inside of the track at Zandvoort.

Antonelli later apologised for ending Leclerc’s race, but both crashes overshadowed that Ferrari were well off the pace in practice, and arguably the fourth-fastest team at Zandvoort.

Fred Vasseur’s team have been looking for solutions as to why they’ve fallen so far behind McLaren since the end of last season.

Journalist Andrew Benson believes it’s now an ‘open secret’ in the Formula 1 paddock about what’s going wrong at the Maranello-based team this year.

READ MORE: All you need to know about Scuderia Ferrari from team principal to factory

Ferrari’s 2025 Formula 1 woes are now an ‘open secret’ in the F1 paddock

Benson was speaking during the Dutch Grand Prix weekend on the Chequered Flag and explaining what’s been going wrong at Ferrari this year, he said: “Well, there’s been a bit of an open secret about the Ferrari this year, as the season’s gone, it’s become more and more open as a secret.

“And that is that they’ve been struggling with ride height. Basically, the car needs to run really low to be competitive.

“But the problem is, if they run it as low as it needs, as they would like to run it, then it wears the floor out too much.

“And that’s what happened at the end of Hungary. Charles Leclerc lost a lot of pace because they effectively raised the car by raising the tyre pressures, and he was backing off on the straights to stop the floor banging into the track.

“They didn’t quite admit it in so many words, but they more or less admitted it on Thursday because George Russell had mentioned that after Hungary and Charles Leclerc said, well, it’s more complicated than that, but he didn’t deny it.

“And then I asked Leclerc after that, is it going to carry on all year? And he basically said, ‘Yes, but we’re going to manage it in a different way.’

“So we’re going to watch for that for the rest of the season. Ferrari are beginning to lose pace in the races. They’ve basically got a choice. Do they go really fast for some of the race and then slow down, or keep a more steady average pace?”

READ MORE: Who is Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur? Everything you need to know

Ferrari ‘totally reconfigured’ their car at the Dutch Grand Prix

Ferrari’s rear suspension has been an issue throughout the campaign, but the Scuderia finally believed they had a fix at the Belgian Grand Prix.

Hamilton spun out in sprint qualifying that weekend, and while he drove brilliantly to recover to P7, Leclerc secured his fifth podium of the season.

Things got even better for Leclerc in Hungary when he took pole position and looked in contention to win his first race of the season.

However, Ferrari were forced to increase his tyre pressures in his final pit stop, significantly reducing Leclerc’s race pace and ultimately costing him a spot on the podium.

Ferrari ‘totally reconfigured’ their car to try and make up for their lack of competitiveness at the end of the last race, although Leclerc declared it the ‘worst Friday’ of the season after both practice sessions.

There are glimpses of hope for Ferrari to take into their home race at the Italian Grand Prix, but whether Leclerc can repeat his heroics from last season, or Hamilton can finally stand on top of the podium as a Ferrari driver, is yet to be seen.