Key Fred Vasseur Ferrari ally is ‘under pressure’ amid ‘deteriorating’ relationships at Lewis Hamilton’s team

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Ferrari will hope to come out of the summer break at the 2025 F1 Dutch Grand Prix able to record a strong end to the year, but they are enduring turmoil in Maranello.

The pride of Italy travel to Zandvoort this weekend for round 15 of the 24 due in the 2025 F1 season. But while Ferrari sit in second place in the F1 constructors’ championship before the Dutch GP, they trail McLaren by 299 points and are still without a Grand Prix win this season.

Charles Leclerc also only gave Ferrari their first pole position of the year prior to the summer break at the Hungarian Grand Prix. But Ferrari compromised Leclerc’s Hungarian GP to avoid excessive floor wear, which ensured the Monegasque fell from fighting for the win to fourth.

Lewis Hamilton is still without a single Grand Prix podium since he joined Ferrari at the start of this term, as well. The 40-year-old has struggled to adapt to the SF-25, for which Ferrari’s rear suspension upgrade debuted at Spa has failed after helping to Leclerc’s woe in Hungary.

Ferrari chassis technical director Diego Tondi is now ‘under pressure’

Now, RMC Motori reports that Ferrari’s rear suspension upgrade is the ‘straw that broke the camel’s back’ in Maranello, having cost them €1m (£862k) to design. Ferrari are pointing the finger at their chassis technical director Diego Tondi, as well, and he is now ‘under pressure’.

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

Ferrari think Tondi, who has worked for the Scuderia since 2007 and took his current role in September 2024, is ‘unable to react’, which has led to ‘deteriorating personal relationships’. Two key figures even left Ferrari during the summer break as they were ‘at odds’ with Tondi.

Front team group leader Ioannis Veloudis is understood to have left Ferrari after 14 years to join Sauber. Head of track engineering Matteo Togninalli is also believed to have left Ferrari, but it remains to be seen where the Italian, who joined the Scuderia in 2008, will head next.

Fred Vasseur backed Diego Tondi amid reports Ferrari wanted Red Bull’s Enrico Balbo

Ferrari’s woes so far this term have already raised some questions about Tondi’s future, with earlier reports claiming that the Scuderia have tried to sign Red Bull’s head of aerodynamics, Enrico Balbo. But Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur came out in support of Tondi this June.

The reports that Ferrari wanted to sign Red Bull’s Balbo frustrated Vasseur, given the impact any move would have had on Tondi. Vasseur even went as far as claiming it was “harsh” for Tondi’s role to come into question, with it also possibly serving as a “distraction” for Ferrari.

“It was in the press that we had signed Balbo, but I had to Google him because I didn’t know him,” Vasseur said, via quotes by RacingNews365. “I had never met him before.

“But can you imagine if Diego, who is head of aerodynamics, had seen something like this in the press? It would be quite harsh for him, not knowing if it is true or not.

“This is putting a kind of, tension is not the right word, but [a] distraction into the team and at the end of the day, we are in a competition with other teams. And if we are distracted or not focused on the right thing, we will lose.”